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<h1 class="title">Israel demolishes Palestinian Bedouin village for
116th time</h1>
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<div class="stamp">Aug. 1, 2017 -<font size="-2">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778472">http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778472</a></font><br>
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BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces demolished the Bedouin village
of al-Araqib in the Negev region of southern Israel for the 116th
time since 2010 on Tuesday morning, and for the eighth time this
year, according to Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned Wafa news
agency.<br>
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<div>Wafa quoted witnesses as saying that officials from the Israel
Land Authority (ILA), accompanied by Israeli police and
bulldozers, raided the village and demolished all the tin homes in
the area, which were built by the village’s residents following
the most recent demolition in early July><br>
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<div>An Israeli police spokesperson was not immediately available
for comment.<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 Bedouins in the Negev reside in unrecognized
villages.<br>
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<div>Right groups say that the demolition of unrecognized Bedouin
villages is a <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=775038"
target="_blank">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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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.
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