[News] For the 203rd time, ‘Israel’ demolishes Al-Araqib Bedouin village

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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For the 203rd time, ‘Israel’ demolishes Al-Araqib Bedouin village
QudsN - June 28, 2022
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Al-Araqib (QNN)- Israeli occupation forces demolished on Monday morning
Al-Araqib Bedouin village in the Al-Naqab Desert in the 1948-occupied
Palestine for the 203rd time.

On Monday morning, local sources reported, 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
or hot weather, leaving them homeless.

*Translation:* *Israeli occupation bulldozers have demolished the
unrecognized village of Al-Araqib in Al-Naqab for 203rd time since 2000.*

*“Unrecognized by Israeli occupation”*

Al-Araqib was demolished for the first time in 2000. Monday’s demolition
was the 203rd so far and the seventh since the start of 2022.

The last time Israeli occupation destroyed the village was on June 7, 2022.

In 2021 alone, Israeli occupation forces destroyed the village 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.

Al-Araqib village, where 22 Palestinian families live in, 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.

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

In January 2022, 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, had 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 that time and started violently attacking and arresting
the peaceful protesters who gathered to denounce the demolition work. They
also fired tear gas canisters and sound bombs directly and intensively
towards the non-violent protesters to disperse them.

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 2021, 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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