<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<h1 class="title">Israel demolishes Palestinian Bedouin village for
120th time</h1>
<div style="margin: 5px 0 10px 0;">
<div class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_20 a2a_default_style no-print"
style="float: right; line-height: 20px;">Oct. 25, 2017 - <font
size="-2"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779384">http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779384</a></font><a
class="a2a_button_facebook a2a_counter" target="_blank"
href="http://www.maannews.com/#facebook" rel="nofollow
noopener"><span class="a2a_svg a2a_s__default a2a_s_facebook"
style="background-color: rgb(59, 89, 152); width: 20px;
line-height: 20px; height: 20px; background-size: 20px auto;
border-radius: 3px;"></span></a><br>
<br>
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli authorities on Wednesday demolished
the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert in southern
Israel for 120th time, according to official Palestinian
Authority (PA)-owned Wafa news agency.<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<div>Wafa <a
href="http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=DPC4b5a92242949007aDPC4b5"
target="_blank">reported </a>that staff from the Israel Land
Authority (ILA) accompanied by Israeli police and bulldozers
raided the village and demolished the makeshift homes made out of
tin that the residents build every time the village is demolished.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>An Israeli court ruled <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=778829"
target="_blank">last month </a>that six residents of al-Araqib
must pay 262,000 shekels (more than $72,000) for previous
demolition costs, in addition to 100,000 shekels ($27,693) to
cover the costs of the state’s lawyer. It was only the latest
payment in which the village has had to compensate Israel for its
routine demolitions in the village.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>According to al-Araqib residents, before the latest court
ruling, the village was 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>
<br>
</div>
<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>
<br>
</div>
<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.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>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>
<br>
</div>
<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>
<br>
</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.
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>