[News] For 198th time, Israeli forces demolish Al-Araqib Bedouin village

[Anti-Imperialist News]

qudsnen.co <https://qudsnen.co/34645-2/> For 198th time, Israeli forces
demolish Al-Araqib Bedouin village
February 22, 2022
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Al-Araqib (QNN)- Israeli occupation forces demolished Al-Araqib village in
the Al-Naqab Desert earlier on Tuesday for the 198th time, despite the
severe weather conditions.

Reports said Israeli occupation forces raided the village, which is rebuilt
by its residents after each time it has been demolished, and removed all
the tents and destroyed the tin shelters placed on the land by the
residents to provide a roof over their heads in the cold weather, leaving
them homeless.

*Translation: * *A Palestinian documenting how Israeli occupation forces
demolish his own shelter in Al-Araqib village*

Al-Araqib was demolished for the first time in 2000. Today’s demolition is
the 198th so far and the second since the start of 2022. In 2021, it was
demolished 14 times.

‘Israel’ does not “recognise” the village, but its residents point out that
they own the land and have done, since the Ottoman period, decades before
‘Israel’ was created in occupied Palestine.

Despite the repeated demolitions, every time the residents of Al-Araqib
rebuild their tents and small homes. However, the occupation forces return
to raze them, sometimes several times in a month. There are 22 Palestinian
families living in the village.

Al-Araqib village is one of 35 “unrecognised” Arab villages in the area,
and is constantly targeted for demolition by Israeli bulldozers, for which
Bedouins are then charged.

Lately, the Al-Naqab Desert villages have been under the Israeli threat of
demolition and bulldozing works.

Last month, for over three days, hundreds of peaceful Palestinians took
part in large demonstrations in several villages of the Al-Naqab against
Israel’s demolition and bulldozing works in their lands.

The Higher Follow Up Committee of Arabs in the Naqab, a local umbrella body
that represents Palestinians in the area, also announced a general strike
in response to the Israeli demolitions.

“We took the decision to undertake proactive measures, beginning with
adopting a cumulative resistance programme over a period of six months that
will lead to a regional general strike and a massive demonstration outside
the prime minister’s office, and the internationalisation of the issue to
expose the racist practices [of Israeli authorities] before international
institutions,” the committee said in a statement.

The general strike was announced in villages facing the threat of Israeli
demolition including al-Atrash, al-Sawa, al-Zarnouq, al-Ruwais, Beir Haddaj
and Khirbet Watan.

However, the Israeli occupation forces stormed the Palestinian villages in
the Al-Naqab desert and started violently attacking and arresting the
peaceful protesters who gathered to denounce the demolition work.

The Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters and sound bombs directly and
intensively towards the protesters to disperse them, resulting in the
suffocation of dozens of them due to gas inhalation.

They also used skunk water cannons to disperse the nonviolent protesters.

This all started on January 9, when the Jewish National Fund (JNF) began
several days of the so-called “planting trees” on disputed land in the
Al-Naqab.

For over three days, the Israeli bulldozers carried out demolitions on
lands of local Bedouins used for cultivation.

The forces closed off the villages and prevented the residents from
entering their lands. Thus, the Palestinian residents moved their protests
to the entrance of the villages.

During and following the protests, Israeli forces arrested over 140
Palestinians from the Al-Naqab, including minors.

The Israeli demolitions in al-Naqab are part of a controversial Israeli
plan, led by the JNF, to plant trees across some 40,000 dunams (15 square
miles) of the Naqab.

In December, Israeli forces attacked Palestinians in six villages:
al-Mashash, al-Zarnouq, Bier al-Hamam, al-Ruwais, al-Gharaa, and Khirbet
Watan, destroying crops and excavating soil.

The JNF and the Israel Land Authority (ILA) were planning to plant hundreds
of trees on lands from the six Bedouin villages, which had all received
demolition orders and faced the displacement of thousands of residents “in
the name of developing the area.”

‘Israel’ has used the forestation projects as a tactic for land grabs and
to prevent Palestinians from returning to lands from which they have been
displaced.

The residents say that such policies are an attempt to pressure them into
being internally displaced despite Bedouins having lived on or near these
lands prior to Israel’s establishment in 1948.

There are almost 100,000 Palestinians live in 35 Bedouin villages in the
Al-Naqab and are all unrecognized by the Israeli occupation government who
views the Bedouin residents of these villages as illegal squatters and does
not provide them with basic services or infrastructure, including
electricity, water, sewage systems, roads, schools or hospitals.
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