During the 1950s, the Israeli military regime removed residents of the Bedouin village of Saawa from their ancestral lands in the northern Negev to its present location. Although the village was already in its present location for decades, Chief of General Staff, Shaul Mofaz the area of Saawa was declared military zone 526 in 2000.
In 2007, Israeli authorities issued thirty demolition orders for houses in Saawa. After all juridical proceedings were exhausted, including an appeal to the Supreme Court, the Court upheld the decision of the Magistrates Court from 2013, rejecting the request to delay the demolition orders.
On Monday, 22 December 2014, a large police force and Ministry of Interior inspectors arrived at the village and demanded that seven houses be demolished immediately, threatening that, if their owners will not demolish them on their own, the state will bring its bulldozers to complete the demolition at the residents’ expense. On the day after, (Tuesday), the residents demolished those seven houses.
State authorities had demanded immediate demolition, although the dwellers of those houses were negotiating for years with the state and have no other dwelling solution. In the meantime, they will have to stay in their neighbors’ houses.
The residents of Saawa decided to demolish their houses on their own, in order to avoid the arrival of bulldozers and large police forces while their children are at home. This way, residents had time to take their personal belongings out and demolish their houses while their children are at school.
Salameh al-Kasasi, one of the residents that demolished his house said: “They forced us to demolish our homes. Who wants to demolish his house and leave his kids outside? This is not a democracy. The state sees this demolition as weakness, but we are not weak. The state demolished my house already three times in the past, we didn’t want the kids to see the police and be scared again.”
Original article with video
For a comprehensive analysis of the situation of the unrecognized Palestinian villages of the Naqab, see: The Goldberg Opportunity: A Chance for Human Rights-based Statecraft in Israel(Cairo: HIC-HLRN, 2010).
