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<h1 class="title">Israeli forces demolish Bedouin village of
al-Araqib for 113th time</h1>
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<div class="stamp">May 17, 2017 - <font size="-2"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777112">http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777112</a></font><br>
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NEGEV (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished the Bedouin village of
al-Araqib in the Negev region of southern Israel for the 113th time
since 2010 on Wednesday morning, and for the fifth time this year.<br>
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<div>The head of the local council, Aziz al-Turi, told Ma’an that
Israeli bulldozers accompanied by police forces raided the village
and demolished the steel-structure makeshift homes "without any
consideration for their residents."<br>
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<div>“All demolition crimes will not scare us or stop us from
rebuilding our homes and holding on to our lands,” al-Araqib
resident Sayyah al-Turi told Ma'an. “We will stay here despite the
injustice and criminal demolitions, we will not submit to their
plans of uprooting and displacing us.”</div>
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<div>The last time Israeli forces razed homes in al-Araqib was only
weeks ago, <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=776644"
style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">on April 25</a>.<br>
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<div>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 Negev Bedouins reside in unrecognized
villages.<br>
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<div>Demolitions targeting Palestinians with Israeli citizenship
sharply increased in 2017. An Israeli police raid to evacuate the
unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=774987"
style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">turned
deadly in January</a>, and sparked widespread protests of the
treatment of Palestinian citizens in Israel.<br>
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<div>Right groups say that the demolition of unrecognized Bedouin
villages is <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=775038"
style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">a central
Israeli policy aimed at removing the indigenous Palestinian
population</a> from the Negev and transferring them to
government-zoned townships to make room for the expansion of
Jewish Israeli communities.<br>
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<div>The classification of their villages as “unrecognized” prevents
Bedouins from developing or expanding their communities, while
Israeli authorities have also refused to connect unrecognized
Bedouin villages to the national water and electricity grids, and
have excluded the communities from access to health and
educational services.<br>
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<div>Moreover, al-Araqib residents have been 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.<br>
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<div>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.<br>
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<div>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.<br>
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<div>Meanwhile, Israeli Jewish communities in the Negev continuously
expand, with five new Jewish housing plans approved last year.
According to an investigation undertaken by Israeli rights groups
ACRI and Bimkom, two of the approved communities are located in
areas where unrecognized Bedouin villages already exist.</div>
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