Israeli forces on Thursday demolished 11 structures and tents belonging to Palestinian Bedouins in a Negev village for the second time in two weeks.

A heavily armed police force sealed Attir village near al-Hura to allow bulldozers of the Jewish National Fund and Park Authorities to level homes belonging to the Abu al-Qiean family, a Ma’an reporter said.

The structures had been rebuilt after Israeli forces demolished them on May 16.

One of the residents whose home was demolished, Shihdeh Abu al-Qiean, said an Israeli officer told him: “Beware there are no media outlets here.”

Another resident, Ratib al-Qiean, told Ma’an: “We will never leave this land even if they demolish our houses 100 times. We will live in tents until God says the final word.”

He said Israel demolished 11 tents and steel homes, uprooted several trees and confiscated a power generator and agricultural equipment. “All the wreckage was loaded in lorries in order to hide all evidence of the crime,” he added.

Talal Abu Ara, a Palestinian member of Israel’s Knesset, visited the village and said the demolition was a “crime against humanity.”

Abu Arar and fellow Palestinian MKs Ibrahim Sarsour, Ahmad Tibi and Masood Ghanayim joined dozens of Negev Bedouins in a demonstration in front of Israel’s Knesset on Monday to protest the forced displacement of nearly 40,000 Bedouins.

Abu Arar, who is leading a campaign to protect Negev Bedouins, appealed to “rational Israeli officials” to halt implementation of the Prawer-Begin plan, which he called a “racist, apartheid law.”

Bedouins “are not immigrants from a foreign country, but indigenous owners of the land,” he added.

Ramiz Jaraisy, the mayor of Nazareth, and MKs Hana Sweid and Afou Ighbariyya also attended the Jerusalem protest.

In early May, Israel’s Ministerial Committee on Legislation approved a bill which outlines a framework for implementing the Prawer-Begin plan.

The plan will forcibly evict nearly 40,000 Bedouins and destroy their communal and social fabric, condemning them to a future of poverty and unemployment, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel says.

Israel refuses to recognize 35 Bedouin villages in the Negev, which collectively house nearly 90,000 people.

The Israeli state denies them access to basic services and infrastructure, such as electricity and running water, and refuses to place them under municipal jurisdiction.

(MaanNews.net)