Israeli authorities on Thursday morning demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev desert in southern Israel for the 121st time, leaving all the families in the village homeless, according to locals.
Residents of the al-Araqib have rebuilt the village 120 times after each demolition, the latest of which was October 25.
An Israeli court ruled in August 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.
Israeli bulldozers demolished Bedouin Village of Al Araqeeb for the 121st time, this morning !#Palestine#Negev pic.twitter.com/YI1KYhKeRY
— Palestine Social (@PalestineSocial) November 16, 2017
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.
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.
The unrecognized Bedouin villages were established in the Negev soon after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war following the creation of the state of Israel.
Sayah AlTouri was arrested today by israeli occupation forces while trying 2 stop the demolition of his home in Araqeeb village! #StopIsrael pic.twitter.com/RqrkFn5VCc
— eman qasim (@EmanQasim) September 14, 2017
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.
Now more than 60 years later, the villages have yet to be recognized by Israel and live under constant threat of demolition and forcible removal.
Right groups say that the demolition of unrecognized Bedouin villages is a central Israeli policy aimed at removing the indigenous Palestinian population from the Negev and transferring them to government-zoned townships to make room for the expansion of Jewish Israeli communities.
(Ma’an, PC, Social Media)
