Israeli court orders to remove Palestinian village to expand nearby Israeli city

Al-Naqab (QNN)- An Israeli court ordered on Monday the Palestinian families in Ras Jrabah village in Al-Naqab Desert in the 1948-occupied Palestine to destroy their homes and leave the village to expand the nearby Israeli city of Dimona.

The Be’er Sheva Magistrate’s Court has given the families until March 2024 to leave their village, affecting some 550 native people from Ras Jrabah village. The families were also ordered to pay a sum of 117,000 shekels ($31,700) to cover legal expenses.

The Ras Jrabah case began in 2019 when the Israel Land Authority (ILA) filed 10 eviction lawsuits against 127 residents of the village and their families.

The government body argued that the presence of Ras Jrabah – which is unrecognized as an official village by ‘Israel’ – hindered the expansion of the nearby city of Dimona.

Dimona was built on land owned by the nomadic indigenous Palestinian tribe of al-Hawashleh, which also owns land in the adjacent Ras Jrabah village.

The government wants to remove Ras Jrabah – an area of around 34 hectares – and replace it with a new neighborhood for Israeli citizens called Rotem, which will include thousands of housing units.

Adalah, the Haifa-based legal center for Arab minority rights, which is representing the Palestinian residents, said they will appeal against the decision.

It argued that the court “disregarded” the residents’ arguments in its judgment.

“Since the Nakba, the state of Israel has employed a range of tools and policies to forcibly displace the Bedouin residents in the Naqab,” Adalah said in a statement.

“Their livelihood has been confined to restricted areas and segregated townships, and they have been subjected to harsh living conditions, with no regard for their basic needs and way of life.

“The forced displacement of Ras Jrabah’s residents to expand the Jewish city of Dimona, which was built on the residents’ lands, serves as clear evidence that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against its Palestinian citizens.”

According to Adalah, Ras Jrabah residents suggested that their village be integrated into the newly planned part of Dimona, a request that was turned down.

Adalah said it views the court’s ruling as a stark demonstration of how Israel’s land regime, along with the legal frameworks it has established to facilitate dispossession, creates a system of racial segregation that amounts to the crime of apartheid under international law.

There are almost 100,000 Palestinians live in 35 Bedouin villages in the Al-Naqab and are all unrecognized by the Israeli occupation government which views the Bedouin residents of these villages as illegal squatters and does not provide them with basic services or infrastructure, including electricity, water, sewage systems, roads, schools or hospitals.