Six protesters, among them two minors, were arrested during clashes that erupted on Sunday, July 31, as bulldozers moved onto the site of the unrecognized Arab-Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiram in the Negev. The far-right Israeli government plans to tear down the village to make way for an authorized Jewish community.

Police arrest a youth from Umm al-Hiran as construction crews prepare to build a fence around village homes, July 31, 2016. (Photo: Negev Forum for Coexistence)

Protesters tried to disrupt the work of Israeli bulldozers and earth removal equipment which began excavating a boundary close to the site of homes in Umm al-Hiran destined for removal. Rabbi Arik Ascherman, former president of Rabbis for Human Rights, and Arab-Bedouin activist Salim Abu Alkayan were among those arrested. Abu Alkayan’s son Ra’ad Abu Alkayan told Haaretz that new heavy equipment was brought to the site on Sunday morning to mark off territory around the village.

In May, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch petition by Umm al-Hiran residents to repeal their planned eviction. About 1,000 people live in the village, including descendants of those who were moved there in 1956 by order of Israel’s then military governor over the area. In its decision the Supreme Court ruled that “the land belongs to the state and the Bedouin have no legal rights to it.” Umm el-Hiran is one of dozens of so-called “unrecognized villages” in which approximately 100,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel live without water, electricity, and other basic services which the state refuses to provide.

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