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.
The implementation of the plan, if approved, is scheduled to start this year, and would be completed within four years.
The confiscated Bedouin areas are estimated at some 260,000 dunams, on which the Israeli authorities will establish what they called “national projects”, infrastructure and other “security” measures, which are required to ‘transfer’ the population to other villages, according to the newspaper.
On the ruins of the villages after their displacement, the Israeli authorities will expand the “Trans-Israel Highway” (Route 6), south of Israel, to the town of Nabatim in the Naqab, an area of 12,000 dunams, Israeli authorities intend to transfer them to Tel Sheva, Abu Talul and Umm Batin, PNN further reports.
According to the plan, the displacement will begin this year, north of Route 31, and will last for four years. Final displacement in 2021 will begin with an annual budget increase, through intensified law enforcement authorities, in reference to the Israeli police and the Ministry of Internal Security.
Israeli authorities will also transfer 5,000 Arabs to the areas of Abu Talul, Abu Qrinat and Wadi al-Naam, from the Israeli area of Ramat Bekaa, with the aim of transferring a factory for military industries from Israel to the Negev. Authorities plan to displace them and confiscate their property.
The villages do not appear on official Israeli maps, and Israeli authorities do not provide them with basic services such as water and electricity. The residents do not have addresses and the authorities do not recognize their rights on the land, and consider them “violators” who take over “state lands.”
The Bedouin Development Authority was established in 1984 and controls the planning of displacement projects in the Naqab (Negev) and oversees the Israel Land Administration.
