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RAMALLAH, Aug 10 (IPS) - A bruising battle of will is taking place between Israeli security forces and Palestinians recently made homeless after two Palestinian villages were razed and hundreds left homeless.
During the last few weeks over a thousand heavily armed Israeli riot police, soldiers and police, at times accompanied by helicopters and bulldozers, have clashed with the expelled Palestinians and their supporters as the latter attempt to rebuild the villages.
Al-Araqib, a Bedouin village in Israel's Negev desert, was destroyed in a pre- dawn raid at the end of July to make way for a Jewish National Fund forest. The razing of the village was carried out despite pending legal action on land ownership that Al-Araqib residents have launched in the local Beer Sheva District Court.
During the destruction hundreds of Palestinians -- including at least 200 children - were left homeless. At least 45 homes, chicken co-ops, animal pens, carob trees and fruit orchards were leveled, and about 800 olive trees uprooted. A protesting Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) was amongst those injured.
HRW says thousands of Bedouin were displaced following the establishment of Israel in 1948. In the 1950s and 1960s Israel passed laws enabling the government to lay claim to large areas of the Negev where the Bedouin had formerly owned or used the land. Planning authorities ignored the existence of Bedouin villages when they created Israel's first master plan in the late 1960s.
The Negev Coexistence Forum, a Bedouin rights group, said in a statement that Al-Araqib existed before the creation of Israel in 1948, and that residents returned there after being evicted by the state in 1951.
Homeless Take On Israeli Forces - Yahoo! News
During the last few weeks over a thousand heavily armed Israeli riot police, soldiers and police, at times accompanied by helicopters and bulldozers, have clashed with the expelled Palestinians and their supporters as the latter attempt to rebuild the villages.
Al-Araqib, a Bedouin village in Israel's Negev desert, was destroyed in a pre- dawn raid at the end of July to make way for a Jewish National Fund forest. The razing of the village was carried out despite pending legal action on land ownership that Al-Araqib residents have launched in the local Beer Sheva District Court.
During the destruction hundreds of Palestinians -- including at least 200 children - were left homeless. At least 45 homes, chicken co-ops, animal pens, carob trees and fruit orchards were leveled, and about 800 olive trees uprooted. A protesting Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) was amongst those injured.
HRW says thousands of Bedouin were displaced following the establishment of Israel in 1948. In the 1950s and 1960s Israel passed laws enabling the government to lay claim to large areas of the Negev where the Bedouin had formerly owned or used the land. Planning authorities ignored the existence of Bedouin villages when they created Israel's first master plan in the late 1960s.
The Negev Coexistence Forum, a Bedouin rights group, said in a statement that Al-Araqib existed before the creation of Israel in 1948, and that residents returned there after being evicted by the state in 1951.
Homeless Take On Israeli Forces - Yahoo! News
