NGO reports police wrongfully detained 5 residents of razed Bedouin village

The Regional Council for Unrecognized Bedouin Villages in the Negev says five residents of Umm al-Hiran, which was razed last month, have been arrested over the past two weeks for allegedly damaging equipment being used to build a new Orthodox Jewish community on the site where their village stood.

The Council calls the allegations baseless and quotes the suspects as saying they did not set foot on the site. Police do not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One of those arrested is Salim Abu al-Qia’an, 67, a co-founder of the village’s local council. The regional council — a non-profit that advocates for impoverished communities — says police held him for six days, starting last Thursday, before releasing him to house arrest due to a medical condition.

According to a lawyer for the council, the arrest of the five suspects, all from the Abu al-Qia’an tribe, is meant to deter them from pressing for negotiations to find alternative housing for Umm al-Hiran’s roughly 300 displaced former residents. The council says the suspects want only to find a solution for the residents, not stop the construction of the new Jewish community.

The council accuses authorities of failing to honor a 2018 agreement between Umm al-Hiran and the Israel Land Authority that would provide the displaced residents, including about 100 children, new housing in the nearby Bedouin township of Hura.