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Photos:
Illustrative: A Palestinian Bedouin woman stands next to her destroyed tent in the village of Atouf in the Jordan Valley. (AFP/Saif Dahlah, File) Published by Maan News

Police arrest a youth from Umm el-Hiran as construction crews prepare to build a fence around village homes, July 31, 2016. (Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality)

An elderly Bedouin woman from the unrecognized village of Umm el-Hiran argues with Israeli police officers as construction crews prepare to fence in the village’s homes, July 31, 2016. (Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality)
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BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Five people were arrested and one was injured by Israeli police in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran on Sunday, as they protested the impending displacement of their homes in southern Israel, which are set to be destroyed by Israeli authorities and replaced with a Jewish Israeli town bearing the name ‘Hiran’, according to 972 Magazine.

Israeli police forces reportedly arrived in Umm al-Hiran with a tractor and several land surveyors in order to begin construction on a fence next to the villagers’ homes, seemingly in preparation for the construction of the Jewish-majority town meant to be built directly on top of their village.

The detainees, who 972 identified as local Bedouin youths and Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the former president for Rabbis for Human Rights, were reportedly released late Sunday night, while one woman was hospitalized for injuries she sustained from police.

An Israeli police spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.

Sunday’s events marked another point in a years-long battle between the villagers of Umm al-Hiran and the Israeli government.

The Umm al-Hiran community -- counting around 700 residents -- like many Bedouin villages across Israel and the occupied West Bank, is unrecognized by the Israeli government. Residents' lands were claimed by the state of Israel in 2013 in order to make way for the expansion of the Beersheba metropolitan area, and the new planned town of Hiran.
Umm al-Hiran residents constitute only a fraction of the thousands of Bedouins who live in unrecognized villages in the Negev and are at risk of displacement due to Israeli policies which critics argue amount to ethnic cleansing.

The community's residents appealed their displacement in court in 2015 on the grounds that the Israeli military administration ordered the community to be moved to the area in 1956, but the appeal was rejected.
According to 972, in 1956 the Israeli military government forcibly moved the Abu Qian family -- who lived in an area called Khirbet Zubaleh before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 -- to the current location of Umm al-Hiran.

The Abu Qians' former land was given as agricultural land to what is now the Israeli kibbutz of Shoval.

Though the Abu Qian family was settled into Umm al-Hiran by the Israeli government itself, and their forced resettlement was recorded as a land “swap” in Israeli state archives, its homes were never connected to the electricity or water grids, and has never been recognized as having the right to exist.

After years of appeals attempting to prove their right to the land, the residents of Umm al-Hiran were essentially told that they were living illegally on state-owned land. Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled last year that the state could change its mind and take back the land it gave decades ago to the al-Qian family.

Israel’s supreme court ruled earlier this year against the residents’ final appeal to stop their homes from being demolished and replaced with Jewish Israeli ones.

“The government has no problem with Jewish citizens living on this property – so why should they have a problem with us?” Raed Abu al-Qian, a resident and activist from the village, told 972 last year. “They allow rural communities to be built for Jews across the Negev -- why not us?”

“We have always said, and continue to say, that we have no objections to Jewish families living here or nearby us – but not in place of us. That is racism and injustice,” he added.
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By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man |Published July 31, 2016 by 972Mat

Authorities start process of replacing Bedouin town with a Jewish one
Israel moved the residents to the plot of land they lives on today. Decades later, the state wants to displace them again — to build a Jewish town on the ruins of their homes.

Israeli police detained five people Sunday protesting the impending displacement of Umm el-Hiran, an “unrecognized” Bedouin village in southern Israel on top of which authorities plan to build a Jewish town, named Hiran.

Among the detainees were youths from the village, and former Rabbis for Human Rights president Rabbi Arik Ascherman. All of the detainees were released late Sunday night. Another woman was hospitalized for injuries she sustained from police.

Police arrived with a tractor and several surveyors to the village on Sunday in order to start building a fence adjacent to the Bedouin villagers’ homes, presumably in order to begin construction of the Jewish town meant to replace them.

Umm el-Hiran is one of dozens of so-called “unrecognized villages,” in which approximately 100,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel live without electricity, water, and other basic services the state refuses to provide.

Here is a quick summary of this history of Umm el-Hiran: Long before the establishment of the State of Israel, members of the Abu Qi’an family lived in an area called Khirbet Zubaleh.

In 1956, the Israeli military government forcibly moved the Qi’an family to the location where they live today. (Their former land was given to Kibbutz Shoval as agricultural land.)

This forced land “swap” is well documented in state archives, but despite the fact that the Qi’an family was settled in its current location by the state itself, its homes have never been connected to the electricity or water grids.

Last year Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that the state can change its mind and take back the land it gave to the al-Qi’an family. In place of their current village, Umm el-Hiran, from which they are to be expelled, a new township for religious Jews will be established.

For the past few years, Jewish Hiran’s future residents have been waiting for their new homes at an encampment in the adjacent forest of Yatir.

“The government has no problem with Jewish citizens living on this property – so why should they have a problem with us?” Raed Abu al-Qi’an, a resident and activist from the village, told +972 last year. “They allow rural communities to be built for Jews across the Negev – why not us?”

“We have always said, and continue to say, that we have no objections to Jewish families living here or nearby us – but not in place of us. That is racism and injustice,” he added.

Noam Rotem contributed to this report.

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