On Wednesday, the Israeli occupation authorities demolished the Al-Arakib Bedouin village, in the Negev, for the 225 time since it was first demolished on July 27, 2010.
Media sources said the Israeli police and soldiers invaded the village before demolishing all residential sheds and barns, building using wood, tin, and plastic.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli authorities demolished the village last on April 16, 2024, and this demolition marks the third time since the beginning of this year.
The Bedouin village was also demolished eleven times in the year 2023, 15 times in 2022, and 14 times in 2021.
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, although they predate Israel.
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.
