RAMALLAH _ Palestine News Network
The Israeli occupation authorities demolished the homes of al-Araqib village in the Negev for the 137th time on Thursday.
Al-Araqib said that the Israeli police and the elements of the unit "Yoav " closed the entrances to the village before demolishing their houses, and provoked them explaining that the police stormed the village with reinforced forces and protected the bulldozers and mechanisms that demolished tents and shanty dwellings, and displaced the villagers of women Children were left homeless despite the stormy weather, but people insisted on staying in their village and rebuilding 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, within the plan to judaize the Negev.
The demolition of Al-Araqib comes at a time when the Israeli authorities are continuing to build four new settlement towns in the Negev.
Some 240,000 Palestinian Arabs 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 establishment does not recognize their ownership of the lands of these villages and gatherings, refuses to provide them with basic services such as water and electricity, and attempts by all means and methods to displace and uproot Palestinian Arabs, such as in the villages of al-Araqib, Zarqouk (Abu Quwaider) and Um al-Hiraan.
The Arab towns are witnessing demolitions under the pretext of unlicensed construction, while authorities are obstructing tens of thousands of homes to obtain the necessary licenses, said the site "Arab 48", which published the report yesterday.
In a related context, the people of Bir Hadaj protested at the Atselj junction in the Negev area yesterday morning against house demolitions and demanded full recognition of the village by the Israeli authorities.
Representatives of the "Joint List", Abu Arar, Saeed al-Kharoumi, Juma al-Zuqeed, and the Chairman of the Regional Council for unrecognized villages, al-Aatiyah, Sheikh Osama Calcaneus, and others, participated in the protest.
The demonstrators lifted slogans and chanted slogans calling for a halt to the demolition of houses and giving the people of Bir Hadaj their right to live in dignity in their homes and on their land.
"We are pretending against the demolition of houses, with our brothers and family in Bir Hadaj, but we are demonstrating against an Israeli secret security plan aimed at curbing the proliferation of Arabs in general and the Negev in particular," said MP Abu Arar.
