In order to avoid bearing the cost, some 300 inhabitants of the Bedouin Arab village of Umm al Hiran, in the Negev Desert, destroyed their own houses on Wednesday. Today, the Israel Police, together with the Land Authority, demolished the mosque, the only thing left standing, in order to clear the area to build an exclusively Jewish town.
According to one of the spokespersons for the Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Peoples (RCUV), Nati Yefet, about one hundred police officers, accompanied by seven bulldozers, burst into the town at around 3:30 in the morning.
This is the fourth Bedouin village destroyed by the Government of Israel so far this year, and in December, it is planned to do the same with Ras Jaraba, a community in the Negev with more than 500 inhabitants and under a court eviction order for more than of one year.
Already in 2017, the Legal Center for the Rights of the Arab Minority in Israel (Adalah). He denounced that the community that will replace these towns will only be open to “Israeli citizens, Jews or permanent residents who observe the Torah and the commandments in accordance with the values of Orthodox Judaism.”
Israel does not recognize, nor does it show on its maps, a total of 36 semi-nomadic Bedouin villages that precede the creation of this State in 1948. Only eleven have been recognized in the last 20 years, but some human rights organizations state that these villages lack of any basic infrastructure such as water, electricity or roads.
“The destruction of Umm Al Hiran this morning exemplifies the face of institutionalized racism in its most extreme form. The Israel Land Authority’s triumphant statements are a gut punch, although, sadly, we expect nothing better from Ben Gvir, the Minister of National Security. It is incomprehensible that a government authority openly boasts about its discriminatory policies,” RCUV stated.
Source: www.lavanguardia.com
