Israel’s policies and practices in Al-Naqab are explicitly aimed at erasing Palestinians from their land and engineering a Jewish demographic majority. In the village of Ras Jrabah, for example, 500 Palestinian Bedouin villagers are under imminent threat of forcible displacement after Israeli authorities filed 10 eviction lawsuits against 127 households. The goal of the authorities is to force the villagers into “segregated, impoverished Bedouin-only towns in order to expand the primarily Jewish city of Dimona”.408 Similarly, Israel intends to build two major Jewish-only towns in Al-Naqab that will house up to 125,000 colonizers; these towns will encircle the Palestinian village of Kasifa and town of Tel-Arad,409 as part of a planning scheme designed to prevent the expansion of Palestinian built-up areas. This will cause overcrowding and ultimately more Palestinians will be forced to leave. Many of the Palestinian IDPs who are affected by these criminal policies have been forcibly displaced multiple times by Israel. The international legal framework on the protection of IDPs is deficient in the case of Palestinian IDPs, especially those who live in 1948 Palestine, as the recognition and realization is dictated by Israeli will, or lack thereof, to do so. 3.5.2. 1967 IDPs: IDPs in the oPt Unlike IDPs inside 1948 Palestine, who were displaced during an armed conflict, the vast majority of Palestinian IDPs inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were displaced after the 1948 war. Internal displacement in the oPt arises as a result of specific policies410 aimed at the 408 UN News, ‘Rights experts urge Israel to cease eviction and demolition of Bedouin village’ (UN News, 3 June 2022) <https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/06/1119692> accessed 3 October 2022 409 Middle East Eye, ‘Israel plans to build ten new Jewish towns in Naqab region’ (Middle East Eye, 24 March 2022) <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-naqab-plans-ten-jewish-towns> accessed 3 October 2022. 410 For more information on Israel’s policies of forcible transfer throughout all of Mandatory Palestine, see BADIL, Working Papers No. 15-22 on Forcible Transfer <http://www.badil.org/en/publication/research/working-papers. html> accessed 3 October 2022. 89 Chapter Since its creation, Israel has been enforcing policies to “Judaize” Al-Naqab. This is instrumentalized through the passing of discriminatory laws and the promotion of government-backed organizations, like the Jewish National Fund, to expropriate the land and ethnically cleanse its indigenous Palestinian population. Land is often confiscated under the pretext that it will undergo ‘afforestation’ and be planted with trees, and by declaring areas as ‘nature reserves’ or closed military zones. Israel has continuously subjected Palestinian Bedouin communities in Al-Naqab to forcible displacement, demolishing civilian infrastructure and thousands of homes and confiscating livestock and farming equipment, all while violently suppressing any resistance to these illegal policies. Palestinian villages in Al-Naqab are generally unrecognized by Israel; consequently, their residents are denied basic services, as well as their right to political participation. They also lack access to education and healthcare. The Knesset’s recent “Prawer Plan” authorizes the demolition of 35 villages and the forcible displacement of over 70,000 Palestinians, and aims to impel affected Palestinian communities to live in urban ghettos. This would sever them from their pastoral lifestyle and isolate them from the rest of the Palestinian population. 3 The IDP Protection Gap in 1948 Palestine: Al-Naqab