On Monday, June 12, Israeli authorities demolished five Palestinian homes near Arara village in the southern Al-Naqab desert, according to multiple reports. The homes belonged to five Palestinians from the Al-Ghoul family and had been built almost 40 years ago, according to local activist Muaqil al-Huashla who witnessed the demolition. The Israeli authorities had served the family with eviction notices and had been pressuring them to vacate their homes and relocate in order to illegally take over the land.
According to reports, heavily armed Israeli police, accompanied by military vehicles, police dogs, and bulldozers stormed the village and proceeded to demolish the homes after they forcibly evicted the owners and residents. Israeli authorities deem Bedouin homes in the area “illegal” on the pretext that their owners did not obtain necessary building permits before constructing them. But according to Palestinians, building permits are extremely hard to obtain, especially for the Bedouins who the Israeli government is intent on displacing from the area in order to build and expand Jewish settlements.
Over the past several years, Israeli authorities have regularly targeted Bedouin homes and villages across the Al-Naqab desert in order to expropriate the land and ethnically cleanse the area of Palestinians. The Palestinians suffer from an acute lack of financial resources and land to construct other homes.
Reiterating this point, al-Huashla noted that Israeli authorities had been trying to demolish their homes for several months now since February. The families rebuilt their homes following earlier demolitions only to see the Israeli authorities storm the village and demolish them once again.
The demolitions have been denounced by activists and human rights groups. Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset Walid al-Huashla described the demolition as a crime by the Israeli government which has “lost all sense of humanity.” Israel is currently being governed by what is probably the most extremist, supremacist and right-wing government in its history, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
