The village of al-Araqib, a Bedouin community in the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south of present-day Israel, was razed to the ground by state authorities for the sixty-ninth time since July 2010. Hundreds of Israeli forces encircled al-Araqib village at 9:30am on 12 June; by 11:30am police had demolished most of the homes of the twenty remaining residents of al-Araqib who have lived in dire conditions since July 2010 when their village was first razed to the ground.

 Sheikh Sayah al-Turi gives an interview with Palestinian media in Israel. “We will remain,” he vowed throughout the day.

Villagers were rounded up inside the makeshift mosque as soon as state authorities entered al-Araqib in the morning. Police forces surrounded the mosque throughout demolition operations.

Men pray in the makeshift mosque.

Police storm the mosque and forcibly arrest seven.

Halia Abumadegham al-Turi, 17, films the demolition of her home.

After emptying water tanks, police load them onto trucks and took them away, leaving villagers, amongst them many children, without water in high temperatures.

An Israeli flag, probably fallen from one of the police cars, lies on the ground of al-Araqib. “They want to create a moon landscape,” said activist Gadi Algazi, “as if no one had ever been here.”

Source: Electronic Intifada