"I have never seen such a heartless and senseless act of cruelty," said Schlomka. (ICHAD photo)

GAZA CITY, June 12 (IslamOnline.net) - Israeli troops bulldozed flat Wednesday, June 11, the house of a wheelchair bound Palestinian citizen in the pre-1948 town of Al-Lydd, now the Israeli mixed town of Lod.

Backed by an Israeli helicopter gunship and over 200 Israeli policemen, two Israeli bulldozers demolished the 40 square meter house of the 23-year-old Hany Zbeidah, a computer engineer, according to a human rights activist at the scene.

Zbeidah was forcibly removed from his house, as it was demolished with the contents inside.

The part demolished was a shed addition which Zbeidah’s father had spent years of saving to renovate, in order to provide his disabled son with a better quality of life.

The shed has been in existence since 1971. The house is owned by the Israeli government housing company, and no permits were available for renovations to the building, since the site was slated for redevelopment in the future.

Fred Schlomka, an Israeli human rights activist, hit out at the "cruelty" of the Israeli officials who ordered the house to be demolished.

"In my years of involvement with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), I have never seen such a heartless and senseless act of cruelty," said Schlomka.

"The doors were extra wide to accommodate the wheelchair, a special bath had been installed so he could bathe in privacy, and a ramp built to the door providing access and a modicum of independence," explained Schlomka.

"After being refused a permit for the renovation the family quietly went ahead and improved the property without altering the exterior except to paint it. Was the municipality happy that a poor family would try and improve their lot, and that of their most needy member?" Asked Schlomka.

"No, quite the contrary, they sent two companies of police and soldiers to flush out this menace to society, and left him sitting on the sidewalk while his newly renovated house was demolished with the contents inside."

Zbedah’s father, alongside two others, has been arrested and beaten by storm troopers at the site, as he non-violently protested the destruction.

"One wonders where the humanity has gone in a society that allows these atrocities to occur on a daily basis to minority citizens. And one has to ask the Jewish people in Israel where their outrage is, where their sense of common decency has gone, to allow any among us to be treated like dogs and garbage," Schlomka added.

The Palestinian town of Al-Lydd was the site of the largest Zionist massacre in the Nakba of 1948. Some 426 residents were killed, at least 176 slaughtered in the main mosque.

Out of 19 000 residents, only 1 052 Palestinian were allowed to remain in what has become the ‘mixed Arab and Jewish town’ of Lod today. Yitzhak Rabin, remembered by some as the "man of peace," was the officer who was directly responsible for the expulsion order of Al-Lydd. (Read the Palestinians mark the 55th anniversary of Nakba).

Today around a million Palestinians are living as Palestinian citizens of Israel. Technically they are equal citizens with Jewish Israelis, but demolitions such as Wednesday's incident indicated otherwise. Housing demolition occurs across the West Bank and Gaza, but also threatens hundreds of 48 Palestinians every year.