By Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel A new Adalah report documents the parallels between two Palestinian villages, Al-Araqib in Israel and Susiya in the West Bank, which share a single story of struggle against home demolitions and forced displacement. The report sets out the methods of displacement used by Israel to expel Palestinian communities from their land on both sides of the Green Line, and examines the legal context in which it takes place. Read more: PHOTOS: Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day with rallies and protests Remembering the Nakba, understanding this is a shared land…

Jewish settlers have been camped out in an illegal settlement in the Negev (Naqab) forest of Yatir for two and a half years, waiting for the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hieran to be razed so they can move in and build an exclusively-Jewish settlement on its ruins. By Nadia Ben-Youssef Deep within Yatir Forest in the Negev (Naqab), on “this side” of the Green Line, there is a temporary settlement where 30 settler families are waiting. Waiting for the promised moment when the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hieran is destroyed; waiting for its roughly 500 residents to be forcibly displaced; and…

The latest revision to the Prawer Plan, which will eventually displace tens of thousands of Arab Bedouin from their ancestral land in the Negev (Naqab), in some ways improves its tone toward the Bedouin. But the Arab Bedouin community has resolutely rejected the Prawer Plan, and Benny Begin's latest report reminds us succinctly that the law was never intended to be a friend to the oppressed. By Nadia Ben-Youssef On the day after the Israeli elections, outgoing MK Benny Begin finished writing his recommended revisions to the Prawer Plan. The Minister without portfolio had been charged with responding to public grievances about the government-approved…

With all eyes on Gaza, Israeli police forces shoot tear gas into an elementary school. Twenty-nine children were hospitalized and 19 people were arrested after police attempted to place eviction notices on several buildings in the Bir Hadaj village in the Negev.  Sometimes all a schoolteacher can do is hold up his cellphone and film children fleeing the playground, or being carried off by other teachers. Sleman Abu Laqia, of the village Bir Hadaj in southern Israel, found himself in this situation Monday morning. The schoolyard was supposed to serve as a safe zone for the children, while police stormed…

Photos by: Oren Ziv, Yotam Ronen, and Keren Manor/Activestills.org Al-Araqib is one of the 45 “unrecognized” Bedouin villages in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Since July 27, 2010, the village has been demolished 39 times. Despite daily harassment, ongoing house demolitions and the Israeli government's determination to forcefully transfer the Bedouin population out of their historical land, the residents of Al-Araqib continue to struggle. Following the 1948 War, the Bedouin population in the Negev (Naqab) Desert, in southern Israel, was forced to change its way of life. Prior to that time, Bedouins wandered freely in the deserts which are…