30 structures in unrecognized Bedouin village in Negev demolished

Just another day of ethnic cleansing...
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Last update - 20:00 08/05/2007

30 structures in unrecognized Bedouin village in Negev demolished

By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent

30 structures, among them shacks and tents, were demolished on Tuesday in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Twayil in the Negev.

The Council of Unrecognized Villages said the demolitions left 100 people with no roof over their heads.

The village, north of Be'er Sheva, has been in a struggle with the authorities for many years.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, when Israel's Arabs were subject to martial law, the families of the village were moved to the nearby areas of Lahura and Lakiya, but they were unable to remain due to claims on the land by other families, leading many of them to return to their original land over the past 20 years.

Following the demolitions, the Israel Lands Authority said it evacuated 24 "invasions" in the area and that "these invasions have taken place for the seventh time this year, to the same place."

"The invaders have homes in Lakiya," the authority said, and added that they had "evacuated tents, livestock shelters, and sheds."

The Unrecognized

Video, Adalah, 16 April 2007

'The Unrecognized' is a short documentary which highlights the plight of Palestinian Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the Naqab (Negev) desert, many of whom were forced off their lands following the establishment of the state in 1948. Approximately 70,000 now live in the poverty of 'unrecognized villages', where they are denied essential public services and face fundamental human rights violations resulting from institutionalized discrimination.

'The Unrecognized' is a short documentary that highlights the plight of Palestinian Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south of the country, many of whom were forced off their lands following the establishment of the state in 1948. The human rights of these citizens of Israel have been continuously violated by over half a century of discriminatory governmental policies and practices. During the military regime under which all Palestinian citizens of Israel lived from 1948 to 1966, many Arab Bedouin were expelled from their villages and forced into a concentrated geographical area. Today, Israel is again attempting to move the Arab Bedouin, into a limited number of government-planned towns, as plans to encourage the intensive Jewish settlement of the Naqab gather pace. The central problem is that of 'unrecognized villages' - whole communities declared illegal by the state of Israel, and therefore denied essential public services and basic human rights such as access to healthcare, education and clean water. 'The Unrecognized' is a snapshot of the situation as it stood in mid-2005. Interviews with Israeli Jewish and Arab academics, lawyers and human rights activists are presented alongside testimonies from Arab Bedouin community leaders and inhabitants of the unrecognized villages. The film provides damning evidence of a system of segregation and inequality between citizens within Israel. 'The Unrecognized' is a powerful reminder of how an indigenous national minority can be marginalized and victimized when their land is threatened by a state system of institutionalized discrimination. Related Links The Unrecognized - download high res versions. Adalah BY TOPIC: Palestinians in Israel Related Israel ordered to stop chemical weapons attacks on Palestinian Bedouins

The Israeil government erases the Bedouin Village of Twail again

Yeela Raanan, the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages
Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Again, hundreds of police people congregated by the city of Rahat. Again, they accompanied the demolishing bulldozers. Again the drove by the train tracks on their way to the village of Twail Abu-Jarwal. And again – the destruction, the violence, and the pain they leave behind.

Is it not yet obvious that the villagers have no other options? Wouldn’t five waves of demolitions, two of the entire village, have convinced anyone who had options to leave? Evidently, the government is not yet sure that these people cannot still be convinced, so here is yet another lesson, maybe you will be convinced this time. Again the village was completely demolished: 15 structures, including the sheep dens, eleven tents. Everything was destroyed. The tents they took.

Aqil Talalqa, the village’s elected head, sat with governmental officials, in an attempt to find some kind of compromise for his tribe, about 500 people, who have no place to build a home. With lack of any other options they returned to their ancestral lands several years ago, and now are subject to the cruel repetitive demolitions. The compromise the government offered was a neighborhood in the Bedouin town of Laqia – on another family’s land. One wonders why would the government suggest such an impossible solution? Scores of years ago, the government confiscated land from Arabs in the Negev in order to sell it to other Arabs. For the scores of years that passed no Arab has been willing to build his house on another Arab’s confiscated land. And this is the land that is suggested to Talalqa. The Authority for the “Advancement” of the Bedouins knows well that building a home on another’s land brings about serious conflicts. Sadly, it seems Aqil’s answer makes sense: “They want to create conflict between families and tribes. All sorts of conflicts. For them this is fun.”

Tonight again over 100 people will be without a roof, in the cold desert night.

For more information: Yeela Raanan, RCUV. 054 7487005.

Bedouin girl shot in head; Israeli Army suspected

Haaertz
Last update - 01:41 01/03/2007

Bedouin girl shot in head; IDF suspected

By Mijal Grinberg

A Bedouin girl in the northern Negev was shot in the head on Wednesday, apparently by a soldier of the Israel Defense Forces. The military police are investigating.

The girl, 12, was hospitalized at the Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva with life-threatening wounds.

The girl, who had been herding sheep, was brought to an IDF base by a Bedouin man who said the girl had been shot by IDF soldiers after wandering into a firing zone.

A paramedic confirmed severe head wounds. The girl was evacuated to the hospital.

The IDF has not confirmed any details of the incident.

It is unclear whether the girl's family had a permit for herding in the area. The herding season has begun and many Bedouin have complained of a shortage in herding permits.

Since 1999, no new permits have been issued.

Security fence and spread of Jewish settlement risks way of life for thousands of Bedouins in Negev desert

Bedouin crisis

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Negev desert nomads on the move again to make way for Israel's barrier

Security fence and spread of Jewish settlement risks way of life for thousands

Rory McCarthy in Azariya
Wednesday February 28, 2007
The Guardian

The bulldozers came for Hamid Salim Hassan's house just after dawn. Before the demolition began, the Bedouin family scrambled to gather what they could: a fridge, a pile of carpets, some plastic chairs, a canister of cooking gas and a metal bed frame.

Now, with their house a wreck of smashed concrete and broken plastic pipes, Mr Hassan and his family are living in a canvas tent on a neighbour's land. Their possessions are piled outside, along with boxes of supplies, including washing-up liquid, toothpaste, corned beef, wheat flour and tomato paste, provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

His tent is small but it affords Mr Hassan a compelling view of the future. Stretched out before him are the hilltops of the West Bank where he and his family, all Bedouin shepherds who fled Israel in 1948, used to live and graze their sheep. Standing there now is Ma'ale Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements which is illegal under international law. Snaking up the hillside towards his tent is the West Bank barrier, also ruled unlawful in advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice. When complete, the steel and barbed wire barrier, which here will be 50m wide and include a ditch and patrol roads, will surround Ma'ale Adumim, attaching it to a greater Jerusalem.

For the 3,000 Bedouin living here, most from the Jahalin tribe, this presents an imminent crisis. "They came and destroyed my house to protect their wall," said Mr Hassan, 62. "They really don't have enough land already that they had to come and destroy my house? We've lost everything."

Earlier this month the Israeli military destroyed seven huts and tents belonging to Bedouin living near a settlement in Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Another group of Bedouin living further east in the Jordan Valley have been given two months to leave their homes near an Israeli military base and a Jewish settlement.

In each case the Israeli authorities argue the homes have been built without permits, but Palestinians say they are notoriously hard to obtain.

Bedouin culture has been eroded as a result. Refugees from the Negev desert in Israel who crossed after 1948, their grazing land has been squeezed by the growth of Palestinian towns, the rapid emergence of large Jewish settlements and lately the vast concrete and steel barrier. Most Bedouin live on land that under the Oslo accords was supposed to be unpopulated farmland where Israel has civilian and military control. Today most live in primitive shacks, many no longer keep animal herds and they have little in the way of formal land ownership documents. They have become one of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities.

Open and free

Mr Hassan, 62, was born in Be'er Sheva, in what is now Israel. His family crossed during the 1948-9 war and moved to land near Azariya, the biblical town of Bethany, near Jerusalem. For years they continued their semi-nomadic existence, grazing their large flock of sheep on the hillside. In 1975 a group of 23 Jewish families founded the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, which has grown into a town of 35,000 people. Mr Hassan and other Bedouin were forced off the land. Most set up shacks on another hilltop. Ten years ago Mr Hassan found the money to buy a plot of land and built a house, giving up his Bedouin existence. "Life changes," he said. "We had no other choice." His seven children, including his daughters, went to school and college, integrating into a new urban life.

Other Bedouin have also changed and work as construction labourers, many even employed in Ma'ale Adumim, building the settlement that has taken the land they once lived on.

"In the past people envied our lifestyle. The land was open and free. There were sheep and we were rich," said his brother Saeed Hassan Salim, 50. "The occupation put us out of business. The Bedouin life is slipping away." He now lives in a small shack that stands directly in the path of the barrier and is almost certain to be demolished soon.

"It seems the whole presence in this area is about to disappear," said Jeremy Milgrom, 53, a rabbi and human rights activist who has worked with the Bedouin here for 15 years and is mapping their remaining communities. "We are asking why it is this has to happen. Why did the government assume the prerogative that they can absolutely redesign the entire landscape and eliminate the Bedouin?"

The Israeli military's civil administration, which runs the West Bank, says the Bedouin were being offered alternatives. "They came and illegally put up their houses and tents. So we are working against this illegal construction," said its spokesman Captain Tsidki Maman. "We are helping them to find a place where it will be OK for them to settle."

The areas under consideration are all on the other side of the barrier from the Jewish settlements.

Capt Maman rejected the Bedouin argument that they have lived on the land for years. "The Bedouin are travelling all the time. They can't say they've been here for decades. It's not like this," he said.

In the late 1990s there was a similar move against the Bedouin around Ma'ale Adumim and several of their homes were demolished. But supported by Shlomo Lecker, an Israeli lawyer, the Bedouin were given a deal under which they would move to a new area, with plots of land, building permits and up to 40,000 shekels (then £7,000) per family. Around 50 families took up the offer, and now live in an area known as the Jebel. However, the deal was not without its problems: the houses are within a few hundred metres of Jerusalem's main rubbish dump and on land that other Palestinians claim as their own.

Power and water

The prospect of another move is being hotly debated within the Bedouin community. For some it is an opportunity to upgrade to houses with electricity and running water. Others say they would rather move into Palestinian towns like Azariya but lack the money, while others still want to stay on their land and cling to what is left of their traditional lifestyle.

Mr Lecker, the lawyer, said in reality they will have little choice but to move. "They are being forced. They don't have another option," he said. "All these shacks are built without permits and there is a lot of pressure on them."

Israel defends the barrier on the grounds of security, saying it has drastically reduced the number of suicide bombings. But Mr Lecker said: "There is absolutely no reason to build the wall there. This is to do with taking a huge chunk of land and making it part of a wider Jerusalem. It is the idea of taking the land without the people. Why not give them rights in Israel - identity cards, electricity and water? The land comes with the people and if you take the land and push out the people then what do you call it?"

Backstory

Bedouin shepherds have lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic life in the Negev desert for centuries. After the 1948-9 war, when Israel was created, many were forced out or fled. Around 140,000 now live in the Negev, in Israel. Some serve in the Israeli military but around half live in villages not recognised by the state where they lack basic services and building permits.

Those that fled Israel crossed to Jordan, Egypt or the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. In the West Bank, around 3,000 members of the Jahalin tribe live next to land taken by the Jewish settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. In the 1990s several Bedouin families were moved to make way for the settlement. Now other homes are being demolished, to make way for the West Bank barrier.