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<td class="articleTitle" valign="top"><span id="DetailedTitle">'<big><big><big><b>Day
of rage' over Bedouin displacement plan </b></big></big></big></span> </td>
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<div id="ctl00_cphBody_dvSummary" class="articleSumm"><big><b>Hundreds
gather to protest against plan to force up to 40,000 Bedouin into
townships.</b></big></div>
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<div id="dvByLine_Date"> <span id="ctl00_cphBody_dvByLine"
class="byLine"><a rel="author" class="orangetext"
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/profile/daniel-tepper-.html">Daniel
Tepper </a><span class="graytext"> <span class="graytext">and</span> </span>
<a rel="author" class="orangetext"
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/profile/samuel-gilbert-.html">Samuel
Gilbert </a></span><span id="dvArticleDate"> Last Modified: <span
id="ctl00_cphBody_lblDate">02 Aug 2013 18:09<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2013/08/20138216944374202.html">http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2013/08/20138216944374202.html</a><br>
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<p>At least four protesters were arrested on Thurday near East
Jerusalem's Old City at a demonstration against plans to displace tens
of thousands of Bedouin from their ancestral lands in Israel's Negev
desert.</p>
<p>Protesters hit the streets across Israel and the occupied
Palestinian territories, as well as <a class="InternalLink"
href="http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/culture/5312-august-1st-day-of-anger-protest-against-prawer-plan"
target="_blank">16 cities worldwide</a>, to voice their rejection of
"the Prawer Plan", which seeks to forcibly relocate about 40,000 Arab
Bedouins, effectively ending their semi-nomadic existence in favour of
being herded into townships with few municipal facilities.</p>
<p>In occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli security forces shot stun
grenades into groups of demonstrators, while mounted police charged
into the crowd to arrest Palestinian youths. </p>
<p>At Lehavim Junction, in the heart of the Bedouin area in the
Negev, hundreds of Israeli, Palestinian and international activists
gathered for a “day of rage”, in opposition to what has been dubbed
"the Second Nakba". The protest remained peaceful, but tense, as
demonstrators broke down barricades and confronted mounted police. </p>
<p>Several protesters were reportedly arrested at demonstrations
in Israel's north.</p>
<p>The Prawer Plan, which passed a first reading in the Israeli
Knesset last month, <a class="InternalLink"
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012102114393741506.html"
target="_blank">will result in the destruction </a>of at least 35
"unrecognised villages". </p>
<p>Today some 200,000 Bedouin live in the Negev, their presence
in the region dating back to the 7th century. Nearly 100,000 of these
live in villages deemed illegal by the Israeli state, their homes
subject to demolition and denied basic services such as healthcare,
water, sanitation and education by the Israeli government. The
remaining Bedouin live in government townships with some of the highest
rates of poverty, violence and crime in all of Israel.</p>
<p>Some 2,200 homes and more than 14,000 Bedouins were displaced
between 2008 and 2011, said Amir, from the Negev Coalition for Civil
Equality. A further 140 Bedouin homes have been destroyed already this
year, he said. </p>
<p>“This process, the demolitions, evictions and displacement is
about land," he said. "The very Zionist idea about land - to dominate
and control people in a space."</p>
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