On Monday, Israeli soldiers and border police officers invaded the Al-Arakib Beduin village in the Negev and demolished it for the fifth time this year and the 216th time since July 27, 2010.
The soldiers and the police invaded the village in the morning hours before forcing the residents out and demolishing their residential tents, sheds, and barns.
The last time the army demolished the village was on April 3, 2023, in a similar invasion and displacement.
It was also destroyed on March 15; the village was demolished 15 times in 2022 and 14 times in 2021.
The villagers keep reinstalling their tents, using wood, nylon, tin, and other materials to shelter themselves from the summer heat and the winter cold, and remain determined to stay on their lands despite Israeli plans to displace them.
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.
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 from the policies of Judaization.
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 sates: ” 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.
