Without respect to whether or not this action is right (I don't think it is), it's absurd to call it ethnic cleansing.

Ethnic cleansing involves relocating or killing people. The houses in question were newly built and mostly unoccupied. This can be unjust and terrible, but it cannot be ethnic cleansing. If it was a an older, well-established town, there might be a case (even then, I'm skeptical about this individual act, though a case can be made for a systematic campaign of many small demolitions).

It really bothers me when people apply terms like "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide" in cases where they aren't appropriate, because it devalues the words.

Who know what's an actual ethnic cleansing? The expulsion of Rohingya from Myanmar. The expulsion of ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan. The Yugoslav wars. You know what's actual genocide? The Rwandan Genocide, and yes, the Holocaust.

The original expulsion of Palestinians in 1947-8 (the Nakba) could be considered ethnic cleansing. This? This is an abuse of the word.