Israeli forces bulldoze Palestinian lands in Negev desert

2/3/2005 3:00:00 PM GMT

Palestinian sources said on Thursday that Israeli forces bulldozed 4,000 dunums of Palestinian agricultural lands in the Al-Araqib area in the Negev desert.

Sources said that 1,000 Israeli border police officers, backed by 16 bulldozers that belong to the so-called "Israel's lands department”, raided the Al-Araqib area and bulldozed 4,000 dunums of agricultural lands that cultivate cereals.

They added that the lands belonged to the clans of Al-Touri, Al-Aqabi, Abu Siyam, and Abu Zayed.

Witnesses also said that Israeli forces sealed off all roads leading to the area to prevent the owners from entering the lands.

They also said that the spokeswoman of the "Israel's lands department” claimed that the goal of the operation was to "salvage the state's lands from the Arab Bedouins who seized and exploited them".

Arab residents dismissed the allegations, saying that Arab nomads owned these lands before the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.

They also accused Israel of trying to seize the 11,000 dunums of the area's agricultural lands in an attempt to bring Jewish settlers to live there with the intention of changing the demographic balance in the Jews' favor

Palestinian teen dies of injuries

Also Thursday, a Palestinian teenager died of wounds he sustained last month during an Israeli raid into northern Gaza, Palestinian doctors said.

Medics identified the victim as Mohammed Ghaban, 18, and said that he became the eighth fatality of Israel's tank shell on a farm in Beit Lahiya on January 4.

Israel claimed that the shelling was in response to a numbers of mortars fired from the farm area on its territory.

The latest fatality raises the total Palestinian death toll to 3,671 since the start of the uprising or “intifada”.