Israeli police forces demolished on Thursday morning the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev region of southern Israel for the 121st consecutive time.
Israeli bulldozers escorted by Israeli police raided the village in the early morning hours and started the demolition while Israeli police closed all entrances leading to the village.
Al-Araqib is one of 45 Bedouin villages considered “unrecognized” by the Israeli authorities. According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) more than half of the approximately 160000 Negev Bedouins reside in unrecognized villages.
Rights groups have affirmed that the demolition of al-Araqib and other 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-only settlements.
