Bedouins urge Israeli police to probe violent clash

Bedouin residents of a village in southern Israel on Tuesday urged the Israeli police chief to investigate a violent clash resulting in the injury of dozens of children. The clash erupted Monday in the Bir Hadaj village after interior ministry inspectors escorted by policemen came to hand out demolition orders for the third time in the past year. Protesters hurled objects at the policemen, who retaliated with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets. Some 30 children were admitted to the Soroka hospital in Be'er Sheba after the incident, suffering mainly from eye burns and smoke inhalation, and were discharged later Monday. The police said the clash took place at least 300 meters away from the nearest school and blamed the residents for heating up the violence. A forum representing the Arab education and culture system in Bedouin villages in the Negev Desert also announced a strike Tuesday morning throughout its schools in protest of Monday's incident. "This is the third time in the past year in which police forces violently hurt pupils, without any justification, during their action," the Bedouin forum said in a statement sent to Xinhua. "The forum announced a strike throughout the Bedouin educational institutions, in protest of the injuring of 30 pupils during the police raid on Monday," it added. The police, however, stressed that it is the violence of the protesters that is to be condemned, and that the policemen were doing what they ought to do to defend themselves. "These are masked and violent delinquents who disregard the rule of law and prevent law enforcement activities," the southern police district said in a statement sent to Xinhua. "When a police force arrived at the village, several of the village's youths began hurling stones at security forces and torching tires, threatening the lives of the inspectors and the policemen," the statement said. "The police view the severe rioting and violence that the youths employed against security forces and innocent civilians with the utmost severity, and intend to arrest all those involved in the disruptions and bring them to justice," the statement concluded. There are nearly 200,000 Bedouins, a desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group, divided into clans and tribes, with more than half of them residing in the Negev Desert. After Israel announced its independence in 1948, several Bedouin tribes accepted the Israeli citizenship, while others were displaced and the rest are living without Israeli citizenship in Palestinian territories. Bedouins live mainly in towns and villages, as well as in unrecognized villages, some built before 1948, without infrastructure or any option to legally construct buildings there, and in constant threat of demolition. In August, a human rights group along with some Bedouins petitioned the supreme court to prevent the government's plan to demolish five Bedouin villages, in favor of new settlements for Jewish residents there. According to the plan, more than 30,000 Bedouins will be relocated into recognized Bedouin settlements nearby like Rahat, Hura and Kseifa. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) condemned Monday's incident and called to open a police investigation. "This is the second event within a month in which we've received reports of police brutality against Bedouins," attorney Rawia Aburabia of the ACRI told Xinhua Tuesday. "There's an easy trigger here and those who acted wrongfully should be brought to justice to make sure these sorts of events don't happen again," she said. "This issue of construction without permits will be sorted out in the process for the recognition of the town which is still taking place in court. Under these circumstances I expect the Israeli authorities were to freeze demolition plans until this thing is figured out," she concluded.