The Israeli authorities on Thursday morning brutally demolished all the crude homes and tents in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Araqib in the Negev desert for the 148th consecutive time displacing its residents.
According to local activist Saleem Araqib Israeli police forces and employees from the Bedouin development authority which is responsible for such demolitions stormed the village and forcibly removed the residents from their homes before wreaking havoc on everything.
The activist affirmed that the police forces and the employees demolished homes and structures using their vehicles tore apart tents using knives and plundered chairs pillows mattresses and other belongings and pieces of furniture from the villagers’ homes.
The Israeli police on Wednesday summoned chief of the village Sayyah Attouri along with his son and other villagers and interrogated them after they staged a popular festival to support the Araqib residents’ steadfastness.
Al-Araqib is one of several Bedouin villages in the Negev desert which are “unrecognized” by Israel.
The demolition of al-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.
