Hundreds of police officers from the Southern District on Thursday morning arrived in Umm al-Hiran to aid the Lands Authority in enforcing demolition orders issued for illegal structures.
"Prior to the demolitions, many attempts were made to work with the buildings' owners in order to reach a compromise and find appropriate alternatives, but all were rejected by the buildings' owners," police said in a statement. "However, in recent days, significant independent destruction has been done to the buildings, in order to prevent the owners from being charged by enforcement authorities with the cost of the demolition."
Police Brigadier General Effi Shiman, who serves as deputy commander of the Southern District, personally supervised the forces' preparations for the operational activity in the field. The activity joins a long list of significant enforcement activity carried out by the Southern District for the purpose of enforcing subjugation to the law and court orders and preventing illegal construction and takeover of State lands, while ensuring governance and preserving the public order.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said: "I praise the Southern District of Israel Police, headed by Major General Amir Cohen, for the operation to destroy illegal homes in the Negev settlement of Umm al-Hiran. My policy is clear: We will not allow illegal construction and takeover of lands, and we will work using every means possible and the necessary force in order to enforce the law. The law of every illegal home is the same: demolition. I am proud to lead a strong policy of demolishing illegal homes in the Negev. This is the only way to bring back governance and sovereignty to the Negev, which was abandoned for many years."
Meanwhile, leftist activist MK Ofer Cassif responded to the "terrible pictures of destruction and ruin in the unrecognized village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev." He called it "Nakba and clear ethnic cleansing that the government of Israel is conducting on its citizens who reside in the village and their children - only in order to to create an only-Jewish village."
"The Czar's militia has kidnapped three of the village's leaders to an unknown place," he claimed. "Whoever refuses to understand that even within Israel, there is an apartheid, will obviously not see that there are Arab citizens who are facing an existential threat and an all-out war against them by the criminal government. Our fight for justice will not end. We will yet remove the government of evil and crime."
Though illegal construction by Jews is swiftly and harshly dealt with, the Israeli government has long ignored illegal construction by Arabs - both in pre-1967 Israel and in Judea and Samaria. In the Negev, illegal construction multiplies quickly, fueled by both nationalist motives and due to the widespread polygamy in the area.
In 2021, the Regavim movement, which closely monitors illegal construction in the Negev, revealed that the illegal Bedouin construction northeast of Arad had risen by about 1,200% over the course of a few years.
In 2022, following the United Arab List's (Ra'am) signing of coalition agreements and its entry into the Israeli government, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett dropped the matter of enforcement for illegal Arab structures, drawing criticism from political opponents and watchdog organizations alike.