The Israeli authorities on Thursday demolished the tents and crude homes in the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqeeb in the Negev desert for the 177th consecutive time.

According to local sources, bulldozers escorted by Israeli police forces stormed the village in the morning and razed all the tents and makeshift homes, displacing the local residents, including children and elderlies.

Israel had demolished the village five times before during the current year and the last demolition happened on March 5, 2020. However, the residents will manage to rebuild their village anew and challenge Israel's repeated attempts to uproot them from their native land.

Israel considers al-Araqeeb and dozens of other Negev villages illegal and refuses to recognize them as Palestinian communities, arguing that the local residents cannot prove their ownership of the lands they are living on.

 

Source: The Palestinian Information Center