[News] Israeli forces demolish Bedouin village of al-Araqib for the 101st time

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Israeli forces demolish Bedouin village of al-Araqib for the 101st time*


July 27, 2016 - http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=772398


NEGEV (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces demolished the Bedouin village of 
al-Araqib in the Negev region of southern Israel for the 101st time on 
Wednesday morning, locals told Ma’an.

The demolition followed several weeks of Israeli bulldozers entering the 
community to level lands, which escalated to Israeli police conducting 
raids on the community and detaining several Bedouins after locals 
attempted to stop the bulldozers.

Local activist Aziz Sayyah al-Turi said on Sunday that Israeli police 
escorted bulldozers which raided the village in the morning “to take 
control of about 1,300 dunams (325 acres) of the village’s land, which 
they failed to take in 2011 after angry Arab crowds rushed to defend 
al-Araqib.”

The first demolition of al-Araqib took place a little over six years ago 
on June 27, 2010, and has been demolished 100 more times as of Wednesday.

The last demolition of the village occurred in June, which destroyed the 
village for the second time during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, 
leaving the residents homeless with no choice but to rebuild once again.

Al-Araqib is one of 35 Bedouin villages considered “unrecognized” by the 
Israeli state. According to ACRI, more than half of the approximately 
160,000 Negev Bedouins reside in unrecognized villages.

Rights groups have claimed that the demolition of al-Araqib and other 
unrecognized Bedouin villages is a central Israeli policy aimed at 
removing the indigenous Palestinian population from the Negev and 
transferring them to government-zoned townships to make room for the 
expansion of Jewish Israeli communities.

Indigenous rights groups have also pointed out that the transfer of the 
Bedouins into densely populated townships also removes them from their 
traditional semi-nomadic lifestyles which is dependent on access to a 
wide range of grazing land for their animals.

Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples James 
Anaya released a report on the treatment of the Bedouin in the Negev 
back in 2011, shortly before the Israeli cabinet approved plans to 
relocate some 30,000 Bedouins from 13 unrecognized villages to 
government-approved townships, reporting that Bedouins in the permanent 
townships "rank on the bottom of all social and economic indicators and 
suffer from the highest unemployment rates and income levels in Israel."

While Bedouins of the Negev are Israeli citizens, the villages 
unrecognized by the government have faced relentless efforts by the 
Israeli authorities to expel them from their lands in order to make room 
for Jewish Israeli homes.

The classification of their villages as “unrecognized” prevents Bedouins 
from developing or expanding their communities, as their villages are 
considered illegal by Israeli authorities. According to ACRI, entire 
Bedouin communities have been issued demolition orders in the past.

As a result, most of al-Araqib’s residents have left over the years to 
neighboring towns.

Israeli authorities have also refused to connect unrecognized Bedouin 
villages to the national water and electricity grids, while excluding 
the communities from access to health and educational services, and 
basic infrastructure.

The unrecognized Bedouin villages were established in the Negev soon 
after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that wrought the state of Israel. Many 
of the Bedouins were forcibly transferred to the village sites during 
the 17-year period when Palestinians inside Israel were governed under 
Israeli military law, which ended shortly before Israel's military 
takeover of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967.

Now more than 60 years later, the villages have yet to be recognized by 
Israel and live under constant threats of demolition and forcible removal.

Meanwhile, Israeli Jewish settlements in the Negev continuously expand, 
with five new Jewish communities approved last year. According to an 
investigation undertaken by Israeli rights groups ACRI and Bimkom, two 
of the approved settlements are located in areas where unrecognized 
Bedouin villages already exist.

The plan would see the displacement of at least 7,500 Bedouins from the 
unrecognized villages of Katamat and Beer Hadaj.

-- 
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