Two people were killed and several others were hospitalized on Wednesday after a predawn demolition raid into the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev region erupted into clashes, as Israeli forces used sponge-tipped bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades to violently suppress locals and supporters who had gathered to resist the demolitions. A Palestinian citizen of Israel was shot dead by Israeli forces after he allegedly carried out a car ramming attack on Israeli officers, leaving several injured, according to Israeli police. However, numerous eyewitness accounts said that the driver lost control of his vehicle after he was shot, causing him to crash into Israeli police, one of whom was killed. Locals identified the slain Palestinian citizen of Israel as 47-year-old Yaqoub Moussa Abu al-Qian, a math teacher at al-Salam High School in the nearby town of Hura. Israeli police later confirmed that a policeman succumbed to injuries he sustained by being hit by the car. The slain...

Israeli former minister, Benny Begin, announced Thursday that the Prawer Plan, which aims to seize the Bedouin land and destroy 48 unrecognized villages in the Negev, will be scrapped. Begin, who worked on the bill with Ehud Prawer, head of policy planning in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, said in a press conference that Israeli prime minister accepted his advice to delay bringing the Bill on the issue of the Bedouin in the Negev to a Knesset vote, The Times of Israel reported. The Prawer Plan called for Israel to officially recognize and register the vast majority of Bedouin villages throughout the south, and compensate the residents of 35 unrecognized villages — some 30,000 to 40,000 people — who are to be moved into towns built for them, the newspaper added. more

Seventy prominent Canadian writers, including Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), Yann Martel (Life of Pi), Lorna Crozier, and Lisa Moore (Open), wrote an open letter to Canadian and Israeli officials urging Israel to cease its plans to evict Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills, and to reject the Begin-Prawer Plan that would forcibly relocate 20,000-70,000 Bedouins from their homes in the Negev. Israel has designated the land of the South Hebron Hills as a military firing zone, and says that the native Palestinians must be evicted because the area will be an unsafe and unsuitable place to inhabit. International law, however, dictates that Israel’s annexation of land in the West Bank is illegal, and Canadian writer Yann Martel asked “if you’re going to have a firing zone, why don’t you have it on your own land, not in occupied land?” According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHAOPT), Israel has...

NEGEV (Ma'an) – "What I have seen was like post-war footage rather than home demolition as the Hebrew media misleadingly describe it," says the head of the Islamic movement in northern Israel Sheikh Raed Salah. Salah's remarks Sunday came during a visit to the Bedouin Negev village of Attir where Israeli municipal staff demolished 18 houses. "Demolishing 18 houses, uprooting 460 olive saplings, cutting down olive trees and sycamore fig trees, destroying roads, power generators and solar cells is war in the full sense of the term," Salah added. He urged all Palestinian residents of the Negev and across Israel to visit the demolished village to see the truth firsthand. Salah was accompanied by other members of the Islamic Movement in Israel. The delegation was welcomed by dignitaries from the Abu Al-Quian family whose houses were demolished. "Nothing was left on the ground. They leveled everything cutting down trees and turning the place into ...

Ha’aretz has reported today that a steering committee in Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office has approved “a five-year economic development plan for Israeli Bedouin”. This is another step along the road to the implementation of the Prawer recommendations, which are presented as a “development plan” for the “improvement of living conditions” for all citizens of the Negev – but with the mass expulsion of the Bedouin Palestinian citizens at the heart of the proposal. The exact number of ‘unrecognised villages’ to be destroyed is unclear. While a commonly cited estimate for the anticipated number of displaced is 30,000, an advisor to Shimon Peres told US officials in 2005 that the “development of the Negev” would mean “relocation of some 65,000 Bedouin living in unrecognized villages” (which, taking into account natural population growth, is roughly the total number of Bedouin citizens living in all unrecognized villages). The person that Netanyahu’s government has appointed as “chief of sta...

Nora Barrows-Friedman spoke with Jillian Kestler-D’Amours — filmmaker, journalist and frequent contributor to The Electronic Intifada — about Sumoud, which she filmed, edited, and directed for the Alternative Information Center (AIC) in Jerusalem, and the ongoing struggle in al-Araqib. For nearly a year and a half, the Bedouin villagers of al-Araqib in the Naqab (Negev) have been incessantly brutalized by the Israeli government and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in an ongoing, broad-daylight ethnic cleansing operation. The village has been razed to the ground approximately thirty times since July 2010, and yet, as The Electronic Intifada has reported, the villagers — who are Israeli citizens — remain steadfast by rebuilding, regrouping and resisting after each demolition. Focusing especially on the courage and determination of al-Araqib’s women, young and old, as forefronts of the resistance, the new documentary film Sumoud (steadfastness in Arabic) offers a valuable glimpse into the...

The Israeli government is planning to approve a new project that aims at building 10 new Jewish-only settlements in the Negev, by displacing thousands of Bedouins from the area. The project was described as the largest in recent years, and was formulated by the office of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Ministry of Housing. The plan also calls for establishing suburban settlements in Arad area in the Negev, the Arabs48 news website reported. Green parties and environmental groups in Israel protested the plan, and said that existing settlements in the Negev should be expanded instead of conducting new constructions. The plan is said to include a project that aims at moving military bases from the center of the country to the Negev, and constructing houses for regular soldiers and their families. The Arabs48 added that the project will be submitted for approval in the coming few weeks, and that the 10 new settlements would include nearly 1500 units, including units in ...

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- The Israeli government on Sunday gave the go-ahead to a plan it said would improve the lot of Bedouin Arabs in the Negev desert, but rights groups complained it would uproot thousands forcefully. A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that the 1.2 billion shekel [$324 million] programme was meant to help Bedouins integrate with other Israelis. "The plan is also designed to significantly reduce the economic and social gaps between the Bedouin population in the Negev and Israeli society as a whole," it said. Around 160,000 Bedouins live in Israel, more than half of whom live in unrecognized villages in the Negev without municipal services like water and electricity. Many of the remainder also live in extreme poverty... ...The Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Binkom, which advocates fair planning policies, said the Bedouins had not been consulted by the government. A joint statement said that Sunday's cabinet...