The Israeli occupation authorities destroyed this week all residential facilities and dismantled makeshift tents set up by Palestinians in the Bedouin village of Araqib in the Negev desert for the 172nd time.

Araqib's residents said that Israeli forces escorted by bulldozers raided the village and destroyed all of their mobile homes. Residential tents were uprooted and shacks dismantled, displacing dozens of Palestinian Bedouins.

A similar demolition and forced displacement operation took place in Araqib on January 6, 2019, but the Palestinians of Araqib managed to have new makeshift homes again.

Some 240,000 Palestinian Arabs live in the Negev desert, half of whom live in villages and residential communities, some of which have been in place for hundreds of years. Israel does not recognize their ownership of the land and refuses to provide them with basic services such as water and electricity.

Villagers insist on remaining in their village and rebuilding after every demolition process.

Like the 34 other Bedouin villages “unrecognized” by Israel, al-Araqeeb does not receive any services from the Israeli government and is constantly subjected to threats of expulsion and home demolition. 

These “unrecognized” villages were established in the Negev soon after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, following the creation of the state of Israel, when an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and made refugees.