The Israeli government destroyed almost 50 houses in a Bedouin settlement. The houses are said to have been built illegally. According to Israeli human rights activists, 350 Bedouins are now homeless.
Israel demolished 47 houses in an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev Desert this morning. According to the Israeli Adalah Legal Center for Minorities, it is “the largest demolition operation in a single day” since 2010. It affects 350 Bedouins who were made homeless by the demolitions.
Houses probably built illegally
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir praised the actions under his leadership. The demolition of the illegal buildings is “an important step towards restoring governance” in the area, he wrote on Platform “to create a different reality”.
According to Adalah, the Israeli authorities initially tried to forcibly relocate residents of the unrecognized town of Wadi al-Khalil to part of the neighboring village of Umm al-Batin. However, the residents there threatened newcomers with violence. Requests from local residents to be settled in a new district of Tel Sheba were therefore rejected.
Criticism and encouragement of the demolition campaign
The head of the United Arab List, Arab-Israeli MP Mansour Abbas, criticized the demolition. “All promises to address the problems of the Bedouins in the Negev are being translated into demolitions and the expulsion of families from the country without a just solution,” Abbas said on X.
The right-wing Israeli settler organization “Regavim” was pleased. The affected Bedouins are “invaders on state land” and have been blocking the expansion of Highway 6, which is an important lifeline for Israel, for years, writes the organization on in villages that, from Israel’s perspective, were built illegally.
Religious minority
The Bedouins of the Negev Desert are a tribal, traditional Islamic Arab minority. They are the descendants of nomadic pastoralist tribes that have inhabited the region for centuries. Since the middle of the 19th century, the tribes have become partly sedentary, increasingly after the founding of Israel in 1948 and under pressure from Israeli politics.
During the Israeli War of Independence, many Bedouins left the area for Jordan or the Sinai Peninsula. After the Six-Day War in 1967, seven Bedouin settlements emerged in the Negev Desert, including Rahat, which is now the largest Arab city in Israel with around 80,000 inhabitants.