The Israeli authorities on Tuesday demolished two Palestinian houses in Beer Hadaj village in the Negev in the southern 1948 occupied Palestine under the pretext that they are unlicensed.
The Palestinian MK Talab Abu Arar described these demolitions as “retaliatory measures” waged by Israel’s right-wing Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel to gain a political profit at the expense of the Palestinian people.
Abu Arar pointed out in a statement that Israel has allocated funds for the development of the Arab villages in the Negev yet these funds were used to serve the agendas of settlement institutions supported by Israeli government ministers according to Quds Press.
The Negev has recently witnessed a noticeable escalation in the demolition operations targeting Palestinian houses in a thinly veiled attempt by the Israeli authorities to settle the Palestinians in small residential communities and gradually remove them from the area.
Beer Hadaj which is inhabited by nearly 7000 Palestinians covers an area of 20000 dunums. However the Palestinians live on 6000 dunums of the village only because the Israeli authorities are planning to confiscate the rest of the lands.
About 240000 Arabs live in the Negev desert. Nearly half of them live in villages and communities that were established hundreds of years ago. The Israeli authorities do not recognize these villages refuse to provide them with the basic services and try by all means to force their residents to leave them.
