Last update - 00:00 17/12/2006
Bedouin, police clash over renewed Negev demolition orders
By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent
Local residents clashed Sunday with Interior Ministry inspectors and police in the unrecognized Bedouin village Al-Twayil, north of Be'er Sheva.
The residents were protesting the decision to demolish some of the buildings in the village, which had just started being repaired following a previous demolition at the beginning of the month.
Police cars were damaged by stone-throwers and one of the residents was arrested.
A week and a half ago the Israel Lands Authority and the Interior Ministry demolished 17 of the 50 structures that make up the village - caravans, shacks and tents - leaving 12 families homeless.
The families were moved in the past to the nearby areas of Lahura and Layika, but they were unable to remain due to claims on the land by other families, leading many of them to return to their original land over the past 20 years.
The Israel Lands Authority views them as squatters and therefore refuses to help them find housing.
The residents had started to rebuild their homes, when left-wing activists from the Jewish-Arab Forum for Coexistence in the Negev arrived Saturday to assist in the reconstruction of their homes.
Nonetheless, Interior Ministry representatives, accompanied by police, and distributed demolition orders to the same families who's homes had been demolished earlier in the month.
A riot ensued and some of the residents threw stones, damaging the windows of police cars. The police sent reinforcements to the location, including Border Police units.
Most of the residents fled to the adjacent hilltops and the police were unable to arrest them. Police did however arrest one of the village's prominent residents, who had not been in the settlement at the time when the riot broke out.
The demolition of the buildings in Al-Tueil is being carried out despite the recent recommendation of the Knesset's Interior Committee to refrain from demolishing Bedouin homes until the residents are alternate accommodation.
Arab Knesset members expressed strong criticism of the demolition. MK Taleb el-Sana (Ra'am-Ta'al) noted that the demolition had made both elderly people and children homeless during the winter, describing the act as "a declaration of war by the state against it's Bedouin citizens."