[News] Palestine - Demonstrators March against Israeli Takeover of Umm al-Hiran

[Anti-Imperialist News]

imemc.org <http://www.imemc.org/article/72822>


  Demonstrators March against Israeli Takeover of Umm al-Hiran

by IMEMC News & Agencies
*http://www.imemc.org/article/72822 *August 27, 2015

    Dozens of Palestinians protested on Thursday, in the Bedouin village
    of Umm al-Hiran near the town of Hura, in the Negev, as Israel's
    construction of a Jewish town <http://www.imemc.org/article/72761>
    on the village's land continues, local sources said.

The Umm al-Hiran community -- around 700 strong -- is unrecognized by 
the Israeli government and residents' lands were claimed by the state in 
2013 in order to make way for the expansion of the Beersheba 
metropolitan area.

As a march set off from the village and moved towards the site of 
construction, protesters said they were able to force Israeli police to 
remove the bulldozers from the area.

Leaders and members of national and Islamic parties, Palestinian members 
of the Knesset 
<http://www.imemc.org/newswire?search_text=Knesset&button=Search+%3E%3E>, members 
of committees for Palestinians in the Negev, and Jewish-Israelis took 
part in the march.

Sources told Ma'an News Agency that the contractor responsible for 
razing the village is a Palestinian citizen of Israel from the Negev, 
and locals have condemned the use of Palestinian contractors against 
their people by the Israeli authorities.

Participants of Thursday's demonstration called for launching an 
international media campaign in support of Umm al-Hiran and other 
villages threatened with land confiscation in order to pressure Israeli 
authorities to stop longstanding policies to displace Palestinian Bedouins.

Umm al-Hiran residents are a fraction of the thousands of Bedouins 
living in villages that the Israeli government does not recognize and 
are at risk of displacement in the Negev due to Israeli policies that 
critics argue amount to ethnic cleansing.

The community's residents appealed their displacement in court earlier 
this year on the grounds that the Israeli military administration 
ordered the community to be moved to the area in 1956, but the appeal 
was rejected.

On Sunday, Israeli excavators began work on infrastructure for the 
Jewish-only town in Umm al-Hiran, building a new road under heavy 
protection of Israeli forces, locals told Ma'an at the time. Knesset 
Member Talab Abu Arar described the Israeli move as racist.

"Racism has become crystal clear in Umm al-Hiran as a Jewish settlement 
Hiran is being built on the ruins of the Arab Umm al-Hiran village," Abu 
Arar told Ma'an on Sunday.

He added that Israeli courts and authorities ignored the rights of 
Palestinians and worked towards confining them to a few recognized towns 
and denying their rights.


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