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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">For 207th time, ‘Israel’ demolishes Al-Araqib Bedouin village</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">QudsN</div>
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<img src="cid:ii_l8uk888d0" alt="image.png" width="438" height="329"><br><p>Al-Araqib (QNN)- Israeli occupation forces demolished on Monday
Al-Araqib Bedouin village in the Al-Naqab Desert in 1948-occupied
Palestine for the 207th time since 2000.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>Translation: </strong><em>Israeli occupation forces demolish the village of Al-Araqib in Al-Naqab for the 207th time.</em></p>
<p><strong>“Unrecognized by Israeli occupation”</strong></p>
<p>Al-Araqib was demolished for the first time in 2000. Monday’s
demolition was the 207th so far and the eleventh since the start of
2022.</p>
<p>The last time Israeli occupation destroyed the village was on September 7, 2022.</p>
<p>In 2021 alone, Israeli occupation forces destroyed the village 14 times.</p>
<p>‘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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Recently, the Al-Naqab Desert villages have been under the Israeli threat of demolition and bulldozing works.</p>
<p>In January, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>The general strike had been announced in villages facing the threat
of Israeli demolition including al-Atrash, al-Sawa, al-Zarnouq,
al-Ruwais, Beir Haddaj and Khirbet Watan.</p>
<p>However, the Israeli occupation forces stormed the Palestinian
villages in the Al-Naqab desert at 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>During and following the protests, Israeli forces arrested over 140 Palestinians from the Al-Naqab, including minors.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>‘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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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, and hospitals.</p>
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