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En plus de la barbarie: la rapacité (ndlr)

Israel to Sue Bedouin Residents of Demolished Village for Demolition Costs

Lundi, 7 mars 2011 - 8h03 AM

Monday 7 March 2011

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Alternative Information Center (AIC)

Israel’s State Attorney’s Office is currently preparing a legal petition for more than NIS 1 million against the residents of El Araqib, a Bedouin village in the Negev Desert under increasing attack.

The State’s Attorney’s Office is demanding that residents cover the costs incurred to evict them and demolish their village, which to date Israel has done 18 times.

According to the right-wing affiliated news source Arutz 7, the State Attorney’s Office is currently gathering information on the costs related to evicting the Bedouin-Palestinian residents of El Araqib in order to calculate an exact sum for the petition. Expenses to be reviewed include working hours of police officers who evicted the El Araqib residents, costs of helicopters and/or airplanes and the trucks employed in hauling away the demolished village.
The many demolitions of El Araqib are part of the aggressive attempts of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and Israel Land Authority (ILA) attempt to claim their historic land and use it for forestation and future Jewish settlement.

More than 150,000 Bedouin, the indigenous inhabitants of the Negev region, live in informal shanty towns, or “unrecognized villages,” in the south of Israel. They account for around 12% of the Palestinian population of the country, and yet discriminatory land and planning policies have made it virtually impossible for Bedouin to build legally where they live.

Despite being unrecognized by Israel, the village of El Araqib has existed since before the creation of Israel in 1948. Bedouin residents were evicted by the newly declared Israeli state in 1951, but returned to the land on which they live and where they cultivate. Ownership of the land is has been the subject of proceedings in the Be’er Sheva District Court.

The first of the 18 demolitions occurred on 27 July 2010, when Israel demolished 40 homes. At 4:30 a.m., 1500 police officers carrying firearms and stun grenades, followed by a special patrol unit, helicopter, mounted horsemen and bulldozers, entered el Araqib and began demolishing everything in the village.

The more than 300 Bedouin village residents, mainly children, were forcefully removed from their village as they watched the Israeli police destroy their homes and property.

Israel has yet to decide against whom to submit the petition. It has yet to be decided against who specifically to present petition, but apparently it will be against those suing for ownership over the land and specifically head of the Al Turi Tribe.

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/jerusalem/3368-israel-to-sue-bedouin-residents-of-demolished-village-for-demolition-costs-

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“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” - Archbishop Desmund Tutu