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BEERSHEBA (Ma'an) -- Israeli bulldozers escorted by police demolished homes and animal barns in Bedouin villages across the Negev late Thursday.

Several homes and animal barns were demolished in Rahat, al-Laqiya town and Bir Hamam, while Israeli forces also surrounded a house in Bir Hadaj belonging to the al-Abraq family in preparation to demolish it.

Activists in the Negev called on Arab Knesset members to prevent demolitions in the area by all means.

Demolitions, in addition to denial of basic services and access to infrastructure, are part of an ongoing campaign by Israeli planning and construction committees against the Bedouin villages in the Negev desert, where roughly 70-90,000 people live.

In May 2013, an Israeli government committee approved a draft bill setting a framework to implement the evacuation of "unrecognized" Bedouin villages in the Negev, most of which existed before the state of Israel.

Bedouins in Israel live in 45 unrecognized villages scattered primarily in the region between Beersheba and Arad.

They are the remnants of the Bedouin population that lived across the Negev Desert until 1948, when 90 percent were expelled by Israel and the remainder confined to a closed reservation.

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