The Higher Steering Committee of Arab Bedouins said the bulldozers were backed by hundreds of Israeli police officers in order to prevent the residents from rioting against the demolition process.
The committee added that the demolition “indicated that Israel started the implementation of the Prawer Committee’s recommendations against Bedouins in the Negev Desert.”
Dozens of Bedouins rallied on Monday in front of Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth Le Israel) to protest its role in displacing the residents, particularly Al-Araqib Bedouins, from their lands.
Israel insists that unauthorized Bedouin homes in the Negev must be destroyed because they have no permits and have been built without basic infrastructures.
The Israeli government approved last September a $334 million plan to develop the Bedouin sector in accordance with the Prawer Committee’s recommendations. The government said the plan will resolve the Bedouin land claims and recognize half the shantytowns, making them eligible for services like water, health and education. Over five years, the rest will be demolished and their residents resettled in nearby towns.
According to the committee, the plan will expropriate some 800,000 dunams (197,683 acres) of the Negev lands and lead to the eviction of 30,000 people from their homes.
The Israeli Rabbis for Human Rights organization said that the Prawer Committee’s recommendation is a continuation of an Israeli official policy that ignores citizens and communities in Israel, especially minorities.
According to the organization, “the Prawer report is a dangerous message to all the Negev residents. It suggests an experiment of transferring the Bedouin population, which is mostly an agricultural population, to towns that do not enable them to earn a living. Throughout the world, forcing weak population into a life of chronic unemployment and extreme poverty leads to difficult social problems.”
Talab El-Sana, an Arab Knesset member, said the “land confiscation and eviction are very sensitive issues to Arab residents inside Israel.”
Around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and became refugees after their lands were confiscated by Israel in the 1948 war.
The Israeli plans to uproot Bedouins are not confined to the Negev Desert. In September, Israeli daily Haaretz said the Israeli military authorities would forcefully relocate some 27,000 Bedouins who live in the West Bank, and mostly in Area C. The report said the Bedouins will be relocated to other area in the West Bank as part of the Israeli government plans to expand the Jewish settlements. The report said that the forced relocation of the Bedouin is expected to take three to six years.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces also demolished a home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina.
The home, a makeshift structure in the Arab neighborhood, was knocked down by bulldozers that moved in around 6.30 am (0430 GMT), according to the Samara family, who had been living in the building. The structure was home to six people, the family said.
