PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Scuffles broke out on Wednesday between Israeli authorities and protesters who feared preparations were underway to raze a Bedouin village in a strategic part of the occupied West Bank, despite international calls for a reprieve.
Protesters, including some waving Palestinian flags, tried to block a bulldozer and scuffled with police at Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem. Some climbed onto the bulldozer in protest.
Israeli police said 11 people were arrested. Israeli rights group B'Tselem said they included the organisation's own head of field research.
The Palestinian Red Crescent reported 35 people injured, with four taken to hospital. Police said the wounded included three officers, including one taken to hospital.
Police said stones were thrown at officers.
The incident came after activists said the Israeli military had issued a warrant to the 173 residents of Khan al-Ahmar on Tuesday, authorising soldiers to seize access roads to the village.
Heavy equipment was seen around the village on Wednesday, prompting speculation a road was being prepared to facilitate its evacuation and demolition.
"Today they are proceeding with infrastructure work to facilitate the demolition and forcible transfer of residents," Amit Gilutz, spokesman for B'Tselem, told AFP.
Israeli authorities say the village and its school were built illegally, and in May the supreme court rejected a final appeal against its demolition.
But activists say the villagers had little alternative but to build without Israeli construction permits, as the documents are almost never issued to Palestinians for building in parts of the West Bank where Israel has full control over civilian affairs.
Israel authorities say they have offered villagers an alternative site.
The village is made up mainly of makeshift structures of tin and wood, as is traditionally the case with Bedouin villages.
It is unclear when the demolition will take place.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat condemned the demolition plans and appealed to the international community.
"Are we coming to see one day that Israel can be held accountable?" he asked journalists in Ramallah.
"If not, it means you're pushing this region towards a deeper hole of violence and counter-violence and extremes."
Britain's minister of state for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, visited the village in May and called on the Israeli government to show restraint.
He warned that any forced relocation "could constitute forcible transfer of people as far as the United Nations is concerned."
Forcible transfer is considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Khan al-Ahmar is located east of Jerusalem near several major Israeli settlement blocs and close to a highway leading to the Dead Sea.
Activists are concerned continued Israeli settlement construction in the area could effectively divide the West Bank in two.
In another Bedouin village in the same region, Abu Nuwar, Israel carried out a series of demolitions Wednesday on what it described as illegally built structures.
B'Tselem said nine residential structures and three agricultural ones were demolished, leaving 62 people homeless.
The Israeli defence ministry's COGAT unit for civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories said the demolitions had taken place after the "owners of the buildings failed to utilise the planning procedures to their fullest extent".
"This despite the fact that they were given the opportunity to enquire in the matter and were told that if they did not, the illegal construction would be demolished," it said in a statement.
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Clashes as Israel gets set to raze West Bank Bedouin village
Clashes as Israel gets set to raze West Bank Bedouin village
- Heavy equipment, including at least one bulldozer, were seen around the village
- Israeli authorities say the village and its school were built illegally and in May
Israeli police kill Bedouin man during raid in southern Israel, local official says
TEL AVIV: Israeli police shot and killed a Bedouin Arab man during an overnight raid in his village in southern Israel, according to media reports and a local official.
The shooting of 36-year-old Muhammed Hussein Tarabin threatened to worsen the already strained relations between the Israeli government and the country’s Bedouin minority.
Israeli police have been conducting a large-scale operation in the village of Tarabin for the past week in what they describe as a crackdown on local crime.
Talal Alkernawi, the mayor of the nearby town of Rahat, confirmed the man’s death.
Israeli police said they opened fire on a man who had “endangered” forces during an arrest raid.
The Israeli news site Haaretz cited relatives as saying Tarabin, whose family name shares the name of the village, was in his home.
In a video statement, Tarabin’s 11-year-old son, Hussein, said that men in uniform came to their house at night. He heard shots and saw his father’s body lying on the ground.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the police force, expressed support for the police. “Anyone who endangers our police officers and fighters must be neutralized,” he posted on X.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the country would do everything to prevent the Negev desert in southern Israel from becoming the “wild south”. He congratulated Ben-Gvir on leading the initiative and said he would visit the region in the coming days.
Israel’s more than 200,000 Bedouin are the poorest members of the country’s Arab minority, which also includes Christian and Muslim urban communities. Israel’s Arab population makes up roughly 20 percent of the country’s 10 million people. While they are citizens with the right to vote, they often suffer discrimination and tend to identify with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Bedouin sector has grappled with crime and poverty, and about one-third of its members live in villages that the Israeli government considers illegal. Israel says it is trying to bring order to a lawless area, but Bedouin leaders accuse the government of neglect, trying to destroy their way of life or pushing to relocate them to less desirable areas.
Residents say police have made around two dozen arrests in the village of Tarabin over the past week. Nati Yefet, a spokesman for the regional council of unrecognized villages in the area, said most have been quickly released.
“They’re looking for people, crime-related things, but they didn’t find anything,” Yefet said. He accused Ben-Gvir of intensifying the raids in the run-up to elections expected later this year.
Marwan Abu Frieh, of the Arab rights group Adalah, said Israel has stepped up house demolitions in recent years, leaving thousands of residents without shelter and worsening the plight of communities often denied basic services.
The shooting of 36-year-old Muhammed Hussein Tarabin threatened to worsen the already strained relations between the Israeli government and the country’s Bedouin minority.
Israeli police have been conducting a large-scale operation in the village of Tarabin for the past week in what they describe as a crackdown on local crime.
Talal Alkernawi, the mayor of the nearby town of Rahat, confirmed the man’s death.
Israeli police said they opened fire on a man who had “endangered” forces during an arrest raid.
The Israeli news site Haaretz cited relatives as saying Tarabin, whose family name shares the name of the village, was in his home.
In a video statement, Tarabin’s 11-year-old son, Hussein, said that men in uniform came to their house at night. He heard shots and saw his father’s body lying on the ground.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the police force, expressed support for the police. “Anyone who endangers our police officers and fighters must be neutralized,” he posted on X.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the country would do everything to prevent the Negev desert in southern Israel from becoming the “wild south”. He congratulated Ben-Gvir on leading the initiative and said he would visit the region in the coming days.
Israel’s more than 200,000 Bedouin are the poorest members of the country’s Arab minority, which also includes Christian and Muslim urban communities. Israel’s Arab population makes up roughly 20 percent of the country’s 10 million people. While they are citizens with the right to vote, they often suffer discrimination and tend to identify with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Bedouin sector has grappled with crime and poverty, and about one-third of its members live in villages that the Israeli government considers illegal. Israel says it is trying to bring order to a lawless area, but Bedouin leaders accuse the government of neglect, trying to destroy their way of life or pushing to relocate them to less desirable areas.
Residents say police have made around two dozen arrests in the village of Tarabin over the past week. Nati Yefet, a spokesman for the regional council of unrecognized villages in the area, said most have been quickly released.
“They’re looking for people, crime-related things, but they didn’t find anything,” Yefet said. He accused Ben-Gvir of intensifying the raids in the run-up to elections expected later this year.
Marwan Abu Frieh, of the Arab rights group Adalah, said Israel has stepped up house demolitions in recent years, leaving thousands of residents without shelter and worsening the plight of communities often denied basic services.
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