The Israeli authorities displaced on Sunday morning a number of Palestinian citizens from ad-Dabsan family after demolishing their tents in Umm Alaq area in the Negev desert.
The Higher Steering Committee of the Negev Arabs for its part started efforts to support the family and its presence in the area.
In a statement the Committee said it would take the necessary steps to prevent the Israeli authorities from displacing the Arab families in the Negev in order to carry out a major afforestation project.
The Committee warned that Israel’s plan to uproot Arab communities from their areas in the Negev as a prelude to turning them into forests would trigger another round of protests as happened in Sa’wat al-Attrash village last January.
An estimated 80000 Bedouin Palestinians who carry Israeli citizenship live in several Negev communities which are often denied vital services including water electricity and educational facilities.
The demolition of Palestinian 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 plant forests and expand and build settlements for Jewish communities.
