On Wednesday, Israeli soldiers invaded the Al-Arakib Bedouin village in the Negev and demolished it for the eleventh time this year and the 222nd time since 2010.
Media sources said several military and police vehicles invaded the Bedouin village and forced the villagers out before demolishing their residential sheds, structures, and barns.
They said the police imposed a siege on the village, preventing anybody from reaching it, before destroying it.
The Palestinians in the village keep rebuilding and setting up their tents and barns using wood, nylon, and various materials to shelter themselves from the excessive summer heat and the cold winters.
It is worth mentioning that Al-Arakib was first destroyed on July 27, 2010, as Israel refuses to recognize it, although it predates it.
The Bedouin village was destroyed for the 221st time on Monday, September 11, 2023, before the villagers rebuilt it by setting up their tents and barns.
Al-Arakib is a Palestinian village located to the north of the city of Beersheba in the Negev desert (southern Palestine). It was established for the first time during Ottoman rule.
It is one of the 51 Arab villages in the Negev that the Israeli government does not recognize, although they predate Israel.
The occupation authorities have worked since 1951 to expel its residents to control their lands through extensive house demolitions and the vast lands equivalent to two-thirds of historic Palestine.
In late January 2019, the then Israel’s Minister of Agriculture and Development of the Negev, Uri Ariel, has completed a massive plan to expel some 36,000 Bedouin Palestinians from their “unrecognized” villages, according to Israel Today Hebrew newspaper.
Israeli bulldozers demolished the village on July 27, 2010; Israeli troops demolished all its homes and displaced hundreds of its residents under the pretext of building without a permit. The residents of the village built it again, to be demolished again and again.
The steadfastness of Al-Arakib became a symbol of the battle of wills waged by the Palestinians of the occupied interior, especially in the Negev, to survive and preserve land and identity.
About 240,000 Palestinians live in the Negev desert, half of whom live in villages and Bedouin camps, some of which have been in place for hundreds of years.
The Israeli occupation authorities do not recognize their ownership of the lands of these villages and communities, refuse to provide them with basic services such as water and electricity, and try by all means and methods to push the Palestinian Arabs to despair and frustration to uproot and displace them.
Article 17 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states; 1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
