JERUSALEM _ Palestine News Network
Israeli occupation mechanisms and bulldozers demolished on Thursday the houses of the residents of Al-Araqib village, which were looted in the Negev for the 138th time.
Sources told al-Araqib that the Israeli police stormed the village with reinforced troops and protected bulldozers and mechanisms that demolished tents and tin dwellings, and displaced the residents and left them homeless without caring for the stormy weather conditions.
They stressed that they were clinging to their land and insisted on staying in their village and rebuilding the tents.
The Israeli authorities continue their plan to demolish dozens of unrecognized villages in the Negev and to displace their inhabitants in an attempt to confiscate their land, estimated at hundreds of thousands of dunums, as part of the plan to judaize the Negev. The demolition of Al-Araqib comes at a time when the Israeli authorities are continuing to construct four new settlements in the Negev.
Some 240,000 Arab Palestinians live in the Negev desert, half of whom reside in villages and residential communities, some of which have been in existence for hundreds of years.
The Israeli official institutions do not recognize their ownership of the lands of these villages and gatherings, refuse to provide them with basic services such as water and electricity, and attempt by all means and methods to push the Arab Palestinians into despair and frustration for uprooting and displacement, as is the case in the villages of al-Araqib and Zarhnouk ( Abu Qwaider and Um al-Hiraan.
The Arab towns are witnessing demolitions under the pretext of unlicensed construction, while the authorities are obstructing tens of thousands of homes to obtain the necessary licenses.
