Thousands of Arab citizens demonstrated – today, Thursday, in the city of Beersheba in the Negev region, in protest against Israel’s policy of demolishing their homes.
The demonstrators carried black flags and banners saying “Enough to demolish, we want a solution that is not destroyed and the Negev is not for sale or for displacement.”
The demonstrators also condemned the “Chicli” scheme, which provides for the demolition of Arab homes and the displacement of Arab citizens from the Negev, in preparation for the establishment of Jewish settlement towns, and chanted “The people want to drop the plan”, and “My people decided, my people are free, the plan will not pass.”
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is required for the International Criminal Court, is pushing a “Chicli” plan, under the supervision of the Diaspora Minister in charge of “Bedouin Resettlement Authority”, Amihai Chicli.
This scheme aims to confiscate about 800 thousand dunums (the dunum equals a thousand square meters) of the lands of the Negev, which is inhabited by more than 300 thousand Arabs from the Bedouins of Palestine, knowing that their ownership was more than 4 million dunums before the Nakba in 1948, when it was inhabited by about 100 thousand Arabs, the majority of whom were displaced, and nearly 11 thousand remained.
It also aims to displace more than 150,000 residents of 35 villages that the Israeli authorities refuse to recognize out of 45 villages, in preparation for the establishment of settlement towns on their ruins, as the first phase of the plan targets 11 villages inhabited by more than 8 thousand people. It also includes villages and blogging.
The demonstration took place at the invitation of the Unified Negev Command, consisting of the Supreme Guidance Committee for the Negev Arabs, the regional council of unrecognized villages, and the forum of the Arab local authorities in the Negev.
This is the second demonstration in the Negev against the demolition of homes in two weeks, after the first organized on May 29. Today’s demonstration came against the background of the escalation of Israeli demolitions of Arab homes, due to unlicensed construction.
The organizers of the demonstration said in a statement that it comes in light of the continuation of the policy of demolishing Arab homes, displacing villages, and ignoring the authorities for the legitimate demands of the people of the Negev, on top of which is recognition of the villages and the right of residents to the noble housing and living in dignity.
Arab representatives of the Knesset, heads of local authorities, leaders of Arab parties, activists and citizens of the Negev, cities and Arab towns participated in the demonstration.
The number of Palestinians in Israel (occupied lands in 948) million and 118 thousand out of the population of 10 million and 94 thousand people, according to the Central Statistics Department last April.