Thousands to take part in global anti-Israel protest

Thousands of people within the Palestinian territories and around the world are planning large-scale demonstrations against Israel’s plan to relocate Palestinian Bedouins living in Negev Desert.

The demonstration was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, in what the activists describe as the international Day of Rage against Tel Aviv’s Prawer Plan.

Under the plan, approved by Israel’s Knesset in June, some 40 Bedouin villages will be destroyed and over 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins living in Negev Desert will be relocated.

Demonstrations are expected to be held in 25 cities including Berlin, Cairo, Gaza, as well as in the occupied Palestinian territories. The central demonstration will be staged in Negev.

The plan also allows Israeli security forces to use force in the expulsion of Palestinian Bedouins from their homes.

It will also authorize the arrest and imprisonment of any Palestinian up to two years for violating the law.

Some 260,000 Bedouins live in and around Negev. More than half of them live in unrecognized villages without facilities and many of them live in extreme poverty.

On July 25, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay criticized Israel for the plan as it “seeks to legitimize forcible displacement and dispossession of indigenous Bedouin communities in the Negev.”

Pillay also said that the Tel Aviv regime must recognize and respect “the specific rights of the Bedouin communities, including recognition of Bedouin land ownership claims.”

From PressTV