NEGEV (Middle East Eye) – Dozens of Zionist settlers on Tuesday night stormed the Palestinian village of Arab al-Ziyadneh in the Negev region, southern part of the occupied territories, installing tents and caravans in an attempt to seize the land and set up a settlement.
Zionist police cordoned off the area and called settlers to evacuate the tents, which were later destroyed. Far-right Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir led the settlers seeking to establish an outpost in Arab al-Ziyadneh, near the Palestinian-majority city of Rahat in the Negev.
Ben-Gvir and his alliance call for the eviction of Palestinians from their lands and running the Zionist regime according to Torah texts.
He has been active recently in the Negev alongside workers from the Jewish National Fund (JNF) who are carrying out a forestation project to plant trees in the al-Naqe area in the Negev, close to Palestinian communities.
Palestinian citizens of Israel see the forestation plan as a tool to evict them from their villages. They have protested against it, leading the occupying regime to halt the plan temporarily last month.
Palestinians protested in Arab al-Ziyadneh, local media reported, and called on the settlers to leave the area. Zionist police barred some Palestinians from entering the village while they were evacuating around 50 settlers from the area.
Ben-Gvir arrived in the area accompanied by members of the Hilltop Youth, an extremist settler group active in attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Ben-Gvir, seen carrying a gun, was also joined by other radical Knesset members.
Of 300,000 Palestinian citizens living in the Negev, around 100,000 live in 35 unrecognized villages which lack essential public services.
Unrecognized villages are denied any infrastructure or support from the regime. There are no means of transportation, no roads, no schools, and Zionist regime authorities do not collaborate with their local leadership.