Israel Dismantled 1,000 Arab Homes İn Negev İn 2014

Israeli forces had demolished 1,000 homes belonging to Arabs in the southern Negev area, the Islamic Movement in Israel said Sunday, describing the move as an "unprecedented campaign."



"The Israeli security establishment aims to force Arabs out of their land," Osama al-Okeibi, the head of the Islamic Movement's Negev branch, told The Anadolu agency.



He added that Israel sought to seize the land of the Arab homes in order to build Jewish-only settlements on it instead.



Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment.



Israeli forces, however, generally say that repeated demolitions in the Negev boil down to the failure of the Arab home owners to obtain construction licenses for these homes.



The Arab owners, for their part, say they had owned the land of their homes for decades before Israel came into existence in 1948.



The Israeli government does not recognize almost 40 of villages in the Negev Desert, arguing that the roughly 53,000 Palestinian Bedouins living there cannot prove their ownership of the land.



Claiming that most land in the Negev Desert is "state property," the self-proclaimed Jewish state has repeatedly demolished Bedouin homes in the area.



There are around 1.6 million Arabs in Israel, accounting for around 20 percent of the country's population, according to official Israeli figures.



www.aa.com.tr/en - İsrail