A campaign has recently been launched on multiple social media platforms to #savethenaqab in response to the latest Israeli attempt to displace Bedouin Palestinian families and raze their farms in Naqab.
Tensions grew as five hundred Palestinian protesters flooded the streets of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Sa’wa, east of Beer al-Sabe, expressing immense disapproval regarding the destruction of Bedouin farming lands near the village of al-Atrash on Thursday, January 13th.
The recent conflict started on Monday, when the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a quasi-public organization, attempted to raze Bedouin farms, home to around 30,000 Palestinians, to proceed with their continuous reforestation plans.
The JNF is heavily protected by Israeli forces as they are mandated with leasing land for Jews only. The organization owns up to 13% of Israeli state land which makes up 93% of the entirety of the land in Israel.
While Israeli officials assert that the land the JNF aims to claim is state-owned, residents exclaim that many of the Palestinian families settled in the land have been living there before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Consequently, between 1970 and 1979, these Palestinians filed for registration to claim ownership. However, these cases persistently stayed unresolved in the Beer al-Sabe District Court with little to no progress.
Marwan Abu Freih, a lawyer representing several Palestinian families, said that the current JNF afforestation project is likely to displace around 28,000 residents including Palestinian Bedouins settled in the land of Naqe al-Sabe.
Protesters were faced with violence as hundreds of Israeli forces fired rubber bullets, tear gas, skunk water, and stun grenades at the former. In addition, according to local news outlets, a minimum of 15 protesters have been arrested.
Huda Abu Obeid, a local activist, disclosed that the residents’ demands are obvious and certain.
“Recognize all the villages that are unrecognized – the first on this list are the ones in the Naqe al-Sabe area”, she says. “Secondly, recognize Bedouin ownership over their lands, which they have owned and lived on since before Israel and before 1948,” she told Al Jazeera.