Al-Araqib

The story

Al-Araqib (Arabic: العراقيب) is a site in the northern Negev, some ten kilometers north of Beersheba, inhabited by members of the al-Turi and al-Uqbi families. Accounts of the place's past differ, and the dispute has been argued in the courts. Members of the families claim that they have lived there and worked its lands for generations, and point to the cemetery in which their forefathers are buried. The state's position is that the parcels are mawat land that was neither allocated nor registered; in an expert opinion on its behalf Prof. Ruth Kark wrote that no permanent settlement existed in the area before 1858, and Prof. Oren Yiftachel testified on behalf of the plaintiffs. British aerial photographs from 1945 show scattered stone houses, tents and farm structures at the place. In 1951 the inhabitants of the place were moved by military order to the Siyag area; according to the state the transfer was temporary, and according to the residents they were prevented from returning. In late 2006 seventeen members of the al-Uqbi family filed six suits for the registration of their rights in the parcels. In 2012 Judge Sarah Dovrat of the Beersheba District Court ruled that the lands belong to the state, and in 2015 the Supreme Court rejected the appeal in CA 4220/12 and held that the parcels had been mawat land at the determining date. From 1999 members of the families returned and put up structures at the place; on 27 July 2010 these were demolished in an operation in which some 1,300 police officers took part, and since then demolition and building have recurred many times. In recent years the residents have moved to live within the fenced historic cemetery, which has remained outside the bounds of the demolition.

• Bedouin
• Cemeteries and graves