Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Restriction of movement
WATCH: Jewish settlers await the destruction of Bedouin village in Negev
972mag 28 Feb by Nadia Ben-Youssef — Jewish settlers have been camped out in an illegal settlement in the Negev (Naqab) forest of Yatir for two and a half years, waiting for the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hieran to be razed so they can move in and build an exclusively-Jewish settlement on its ruins. Deep within Yatir Forest in the Negev (Naqab), on “this side” of the Green Line, there is a temporary settlement where 30 settler families are waiting. Waiting for the promised moment when the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hieran is destroyed; waiting for its roughly 500 residents to be forcibly displaced; and waiting for their exclusively-Jewish town of Hiran to be built in its place … I’m not unfamiliar with the alternate universe of the Negev (Naqab), and have even become accustomed to issuing a daily self-reminder to believe what I see. And yet, last week I found myself wandering about in a state of utter bewilderment. There had been rumors that such an encampment existed. But as the temporary settlement — let us call it an outpost — was established in contravention of the Regional Master Plan, not even the residents of Umm al-Hieran had been able to locate it.