many villages in the Naqab are now “unrecognized”, even though they predate the creation of Israel and their property titles were recognized by both the Ottoman and the British administrations. Numerous policies were implemented to forcibly displace the Naqab’s inhabitants. Starting as early as 1953, the Land Acquisition Law was used to claim the village of Al Araqib as a military training zone for six months. The inhabitants, however, were simply never allowed back. Considering the size of the Naqab, it is highly probable that other uninhabited lands could have been chosen for such military training, especially since no actual military activity was reported throughout these 6 months, demonstrating that the stated aim of the confiscation was never realized. Yet, Israel keeps trying to push Al Araqib’s inhabitants away, the occupation armed forces having destroyed the village an astounding 196 times.24 The unrecognized designation disqualifies the concerned villages from receiving any infrastructure development and service provision such as water, sanitation or electricity. As a result, since the 1970s, around 85,000 Palestinian Bedouins have been coerced into moving to townships, in search of better living conditions.25 The political motivation behind land confiscation and forestation plans in the Naqab is clear, as stated by former Prime Minister Netanyahu: “allowing for a region without Jewish majority in the Naqab would pose a palpable threat to Israel.”26 Since 2013, the annual number of home demolitions against Bedouin citizens in the Naqab has tripled from 697 in 2013 to 2,326 in 2018 – an increase of 333%.27 24 Arab Organization for Human Rights in the UK, For 196th time, Israeli occupation demolishes the Palestinian village of al-Araqib, 2021, Accessed 15 February 2022, Available at: https://bit.ly/3oP0StL 25 BADIL, Denial of access to natural resources and services, Working Paper no 20, 2017, 65, Available at https://www.badil.org/cached_uploads/view/2021/04/19/wp20danrs-1618823866.pdf 26 Nadia Ben-Youssef, Suhad Bishara, and Rina Rosenberg, “The forced displacement of Palestinians,” Open Democracy, 2013, Accessed 15 February 2022, Available at: https:// www.opendemocracy.net/en/forced-displacement-of-palestinians/ [Hereinafter: Ben-Youssef, Bishara, Rosenberg, “Forced Displacement”]. 27 NCF and Adalah, NGO Report to the UN Human Right Committee, 9 April 2018, 4, Accessed 18 February 2022, Available at: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/ CCPR/Shared%20Documents/ISR/INT_CCPR_ICS_ISR_31486_E.pdf 8