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NEGEV, Israel – Israeli bulldozers have demolished the Arab Bedouin village Al-Araqib in the southern Negev region.

The demolition, according to local Palestinian sources and reported by Anadolu Agency, took place on Thursday.

It is the 144th time the village has been demolished.

Aziz al-Touri, a member of the Committee for the Defense of Al-Araqib (a local NGO devoted to safeguarding the village from Israel depredations), said Israeli forces had stormed the village Thursday morning before razing it to the ground for the 144th time.

“They also confiscated villagers’ property and desecrated a local Muslim cemetery,” he told Anadolu Agency.

According to al-Touri, it is the second time the village has been demolished during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began this year on 6 May.

“We condemn this unjust and deliberate policy by the Israeli authorities,” he said, going on to assert that the people of Al-Araqib “will continue to steadfastly resist this aggression.”

Since 2010, the Israeli authorities have demolished makeshift homes in the village, which are always quickly rebuilt by local residents, scores of times.

Residents of Al-Araqib are Arab citizens of Israel who were displaced commencing in 1948 when the nascent state of Israel claimed the area as “state land.” By 1953, according to Wikipedia, 90% of the 100,000 population of the northern Negev had been ‘expelled.’ Israel maintains the area was abandoned by the villagers who they termed ‘squatters,’ as they were unable to provide title deeds to the land.

(Photo credit: Anadolu Agency).