In the summer of 2002, Sharon intensified a policy of demolishing Palestinian houses in the occupied territories—a policy initiated by the British during the Great Arab Rebellion of the 1930s. The Israeli policy was carried out against families of suicide bombers and other militants; for "military purposes," primarily in Gaza; and against Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem who had built without the permits Israel required of them. Human rights groups estimated that between ten thousand and twenty-two thousand Palestinians lost their homes as a result of the policy and hundreds of acres of
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