The Israeli authorities on Thursday morning demolished all the crude homes and tents in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Araqib in the Negev desert for the 156th consecutive time displacing its residents.
According to local activist Ahmed al-Tawri 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 Israeli police arrested an elderly woman called Umm Ashraf during the demolition campaign in the village and took her to a police station in Beersheba.
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.
Dozens of Bedouin citizens including children women and elderlies have become homeless and will suffer from the harsh weather of the desert for a while before they could have new makeshift homes again.
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.
However such Israeli arbitrary criminal and inhumane policy of demolition uprooting and displacement will only increase the residents’ resolve and adherence to their land and village even if Israel demolishes it thousands of times.
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.
