Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet on Sunday approved a plan to relocate tens of thousands of Bedouin from their unrecognized villages into settlements with official state status.
The plan emerges from the Prawer Report, drafted to find a solution to the problem of unrecognized villages in the Negev.
As part of the plan, some 20,000 to 30,000 Bedouon will be relocated to recognized settlements including Rahat, Khura and Ksayfe. The plan also includes financial compensation for those relocated, as well as alternate plots of land. The program is estimated to cost the state NIS 6.8 billion.
Opponents of the plan have accusing the government of evacuating people from their homes for no justified reason and against their will.
Bedouin representative called the decision “a declaration of war,” and some 150 members of the community gathered outside the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem on Sunday to protest the decision.
“This stupid government will be responsible for a Bedouin Intifada in the Negev,” said Arab MK Taleb al-Sana, who took part in the protest.
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