Fil Kaler's 6min Video: Al-Arakib Razed By Israeli Forces (includes interviews)

Al-Arakib Razed By Israeli Forces:

"filkaler | December 28, 2010

Around 350 Bedouins living in Israel's Negev desert have been made homeless after police raided their village and razed their homes.

Over 1,500 riot police arrived in Al-Arakib village at dawn, they destroyed 40 to 50 homes and uprooted hundreds of olive trees belonging to the villagers.

Israel Land Administration officials refer to the village as 'unrecognized' and claimed the demolition was legal because residents 'invaded' the area.

Residents say they have lived on the land since the Ottoman Empire, and that their village cemetery contains graves dating back to the end of the 19th Century.

Half a million trees planted during the past 18 months on the ancestral lands of the Bedouin in Israel's Negev region were bought by a controversial Christian evangelical television channel know as God-TV, US tax records show.

The Jewish National Fund, an international non-profit organization in charge of forestation and developing Jewish settlements in Israel, received a US$500,000 donation from God-TV to 'make the desert bloom'.

Al-Araqib has been demolished seven times in recent months by the Israeli police as officials increase the pressure on the 350 inhabitants to move to Rahat, a run down, government-planned township nearby.

Netanyahu recently described the Bedouin citizens of Israel as a 'real threat', legitimizing their expulsion from the Negev in order to 'Judaize' it.



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