The Israeli authorities on Wednesday morning demolished all the Palestinian homes of the Bedouin village of Araqib in the Negev desert for the 142nd consecutive time.
Activist Aziz al-Touri said that Israeli bulldozers escorted by police forces stormed the village and removed all crude homes and tents under the pretext of being unlicensed.
Dozens of Bedouin citizens including children have become homeless and will suffer from the harsh weather of the desert for a while before they could have new makeshift homes again.
Al-Touri said that the Israeli police before the demolition operation started raided the village harassed the residents and arrested his mother and his child Saeed.
Araqib residents live in a constant state of fear because they expect the demolition of their village at any moment after they manage to rebuild their homes again.
Araqib is one of several Bedouin villages in the Negev desert which are “unrecognized” by Israel.
The demolition of Araqib and other villages in the Negev is a systematic Israeli policy aimed at expelling the native population from the Negev and transferring them to government-zoned areas to pave the way to expand and build settlements for Jewish communities.
