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Source: Human Rights Watch Twayil Abu Jarwal—A Bedouin Village Repeatedly under the Bulldozer On December 11, 8, 2007, officials from the Israel Land Administration, accompaniedby hundreds of police, bulldozers, and trucks, entered the unrecognized Bedouin village of Twayil Abu Jarwal near the Goral junction in the Negev and demolished 20 structures.

This was the last of eight times that ILA officials demolished homes of the al-Talalqah tribe in Twayil Abu Jarwal in 2007.

In the 1950s, Israeli military authorities had moved the inhabitants of Twayil from this area, which the al-Talalqah claim as their ancestral land. In 1978 the Bedouin bought options for plots of land from the ILA in the government-planned township of Lakiya, but they have never received their plots.

Instead they have lived in “illegal” shacks on the outskirts of the township for over 20 years. Several years ago, after giving up hope of ever receiving their plots in Lakiya, many families returned to Twayil and began to build there. In 2006 Human Rights Watch visited Twayil Abu Jarwal on a day of demolitions on December 6 and again on December 21, a day residents received another round of demolition orders. Akil al-Talalqah showed Human Rights Watch the remains of a stone schoolhouse where he studied as a child and the family cemetery with headstones dating from the 1800s.

His sister Aliya al-Talalqah, 37, showed Human Rights Watch the tents where she, her 15 children, and her one-year-old grandchild have been sleeping since the last round of demolitions. “Where are we supposed to go?” she asked.

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