RAMALLAH – The Israeli Lands Administration (ILA) on Tuesday demolished the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev Desert for the fifty-second time in the last three years. Sheikh Sayyah Abu Modaighem, the head of al-Araqib village's council, said the Jewish National Fund and the ILA's bulldozers, backed by hundreds of Israeli police officers demolished the tents and shacks of the village. He added that “this is the fifty-second time since July 2010.” Israel insists that unrecognized Bedouin homes in the Negev must be destroyed because they have no permits and have been built without basic infrastructures. Abu Modaighem said that the police inspectors confiscated the ingredients of the homes and transferred them to unknown locations before the bulldozers began the demolition process. He added that the Israeli security forces declared the village a closed military zone and prevented Arab and Israeli leftist activists and journalists from entering it to show solidarity or to cover the demolition. The official said that volunteers from the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee and several Arab and Israeli political activists rebuild five homes. He added that the other structures, home to 25 families, will be rebuilt in the coming days. Abu Modaighem stressed that the “residents are determined steadfast in their village despite the Israeli measures.” The ILA reiterates its stance that the demolitions were carried our legally and according to a court order that determined the residents invaded an area that were not theirs, and did not act in good faith. The ILA said the evacuation Bedouins was conducted after many years of legal - and physical - battles against the al-Touri tribe. The ILA said the al-Touri tribe invaded the area, which is state land, in 1998 and in 2000 a court order was handed down banning them from entering the area. But the tribe moved in and planted trees. The ILA offered to rent them the land at a price of 2 Israeli shekel per dunam, but they refused to pay. The development comes a day after thousands of Arab Palestinians inside Israel held a general strike against the Israeli Prawer plan to uproot some 30,000 Bedouins from their shantytowns in the Negev Desert. According to the plan, which was passed in first reading in the Israeli Knesset, some 800,000 dunam (197,683 acres) of the Negev lands will be expropriated and lead to the eviction of 30,000 people from their homes.
