Police complete demolition of unrecognized Bedouin village Umm al-Hiran

Police demolish the last remains of the unrecognized southern Bedouin village Umm al-Hiran to make way for a planned Orthodox Jewish Jewish community called Dror.

The demolition ends a more than 20-year legal battle and carries out a 2015 High Court of Justice ruling that the Bedouin have been illegally squatting on land that belongs to the state.

Efforts to convince the roughly 300 residents to move to plots prepared for them in the nearby Bedouin town of Hura largely failed.

Many of the residents opted to demolish their homes themselves. Police on the scene today raze a mosque that still stands, according to video released by the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Bedouin Villages in the Negev, a nonprofit that represents the impoverished southern communities.

The group says three members of Umm al-Hiran’s leadership were detained ahead of the demolition and their whereabouts are unknown.

A spokesman for the Council calls the demolition “another chapter in the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Arabs in this country.”

In a statement, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir hails his “strong policy of demolishing illegal homes in the Negev,” saying he has overseen a 400% rise in demolition orders there since the start of 2024.

A previous 2017 demolition in Umm al-Hiran resulted in police shooting and killing a Bedouin driver, causing his vehicle to run over and kill a policeman. He was falsely accused of being a terrorist.

The 37 unrecognized villages in the Negev house some 150,000 people, or roughly a third of Israel’s Bedouin population, according to the Council. Israel decided in the 1990s to raze some of the illegally built villages and build authorized communities in their stead.

According to the Council, the plan will see some 9,000 Bedouins in 14 villages lose their homes.