Israel Demolishes 80 Homes in Negev Village of Al-Dhahiya, Displacing About 400 People Weeks Before Election

Teams from the Israel Land Authority, backed by reinforced police under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's ministry, demolished around 80 homes on Monday in Al-Dhahiya, an unrecognized Palestinian village north of Rahat in the Negev, according to Israel's public broadcaster KAN. Roughly 400 people had been living in the homes.

The demolitions came a day after the Beersheba District Court rejected a petition seeking to postpone them, KAN reported. Israeli authorities justified the action on the grounds that the structures were "built without permits," a designation residents and Arab officials dispute given that Al-Dhahiya, like dozens of other Bedouin villages in the Negev, is not recognized by the state and has no formal planning process through which residents could obtain permits in the first place.

The demolitions fit a pattern Ben-Gvir has publicly amplified in recent weeks. Last Tuesday he took part in the demolition of a five-story building housing 70 Palestinians in the At-Tur neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, an action the Jerusalem Governorate called "the electoral exploitation of Jerusalem at the expense of Palestinians."

The Joint List, an alliance of three Arab parties, denounced the Al-Dhahiya demolitions as a continuation of successive Israeli governments' policies against Negev villages.

"The demolitions were a continuation of the successive Israeli governments' policies of demolition, uprooting and displacement against residents of Arab villages in the Negev," the Joint List said in a statement.

Hassan al-Nasasra, deputy mayor of Rahat, went further, calling the action political theater rather than law enforcement. "The demolitions are not an implementation of the law in any way, but merely election propaganda for the racist Ben-Gvir and his group," he said, according to KAN.

United Arab List leader Mansour Abbas sent an urgent letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara demanding an immediate freeze on demolition orders until after the Oct. 27 election and the formation of a new government. Abbas warned that Ben-Gvir's public boasting about his role in demolitions "undermines the integrity of the election and the neutrality of law enforcement agencies," and said residents of unrecognized Negev villages cannot obtain building permits because of a planning failure for which, he said, the state itself is responsible.

Scale of the policy

Dozens of Negev villages remain unrecognized by Israeli authorities, who classify their homes as unauthorized and withhold connections to water, electricity and roads, along with schools and clinics. Last year the daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that demolition orders in the region had risen by as much as 400 percent since the start of that year, a trend Israeli rights organizations described as discriminatory and targeted at the Bedouin community. Palestinian Bedouin tribes have lived in the Negev for centuries, predating Israel's establishment in 1948.