[News] Israel demolishes Palestinian Bedouin village for 120th time

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Israel demolishes Palestinian Bedouin village for 120th time

Oct. 25, 2017 - 
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779384<http://www.maannews.com/#facebook>

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli authorities on Wednesday demolished the 
Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert in southern Israel for 
120th time, according to official Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned Wafa 
news agency.

Wafa reported 
<http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=DPC4b5a92242949007aDPC4b5>that 
staff from the Israel Land Authority (ILA) accompanied by Israeli police 
and bulldozers raided the village and demolished the makeshift homes 
made out of tin that the residents build every time the village is 
demolished.

An Israeli court ruled last month 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778829>that six residents of 
al-Araqib must pay 262,000 shekels (more than $72,000) for previous 
demolition costs, in addition to 100,000 shekels ($27,693) to cover the 
costs of the state’s lawyer. It was only the latest payment in which the 
village has had to compensate Israel for its routine demolitions in the 
village.

According to al-Araqib residents, before the latest court ruling, the 
village was ordered to pay more than two million shekels (approximately 
$541,000) for the cumulative cost of Israeli-enforced demolitions 
carried out against the village since 2010.

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

The unrecognized Bedouin villages were established in the Negev soon 
after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war following the creation of 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.

Right groups say that the demolition of unrecognized Bedouin villages is 
a central Israeli policy aimed at removing the indigenous Palestinian 
population <http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=775038> from the 
Negev and transferring them to government-zoned townships to make room 
for the expansion of Jewish Israeli communities.
-- 
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