Bnaya Smotrich, the son of far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, is among the recipients of land plots for a new Jewish settlement established on the former site of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in southern Israel.
The residents of Umm al-Hiran were forcibly removed last year, despite a court ruling affirming their authorisation to live there, following their relocation to the area by the Israeli state in the 1950s. The village was subsequently demolished, and a new Jewish community, Dror, is now being built on the site, as reported by Haaretz.
The process for allocating plots involved registration and a lottery system rather than competitive bidding, with only Jewish Israelis allowed to enter the lottery.
The displaced Bedouin residents were excluded from receiving “local” status, which could have granted them priority access to land allocations. Despite not qualifying as a local, 21-year-old Bnaya Smotrich, a student at the Beit El yeshiva, secured one of the 115 plots distributed through the public lottery.
Haaretz reports that Bnaya Smotrich and his wife secured the right to purchase a 513-square-meter (5,522-square-foot) plot for house construction at the relatively low cost of 60,150 shekels. Many of those who were awarded plots of land are also ideologically affiliated with far-right and extremist forms of Jewish nationalism, with 115 plots going to ‘locals’ who belong to a
Israel claims the hundreds of villagers were squatting on state-owned land and officials had offered them plots in a nearby Bedouin township. Residents of the village, however, accuse the authorities of forcibly displacing them so the land can be developed for Israel’s Jewish majority.
All of the displaced Bedouin residents of Umm al-Hiran are now effectively living as internal refugees in the township of Hura. Some are living in crowded conditions with relatives, while some are in aluminium shacks that lack adequate supplies of either water or electricity and without any legal title to a home.
Israel has failed to provide any adequate replacement housing for the displaced Bedouins.
Residents see the destruction of Umm al-Hiran as yet another example of Israel’s increasing discrimination against its non-Jewish minority citizens, as Bedouin residents were unable to purchase land in the new settlement, which is designated exclusively for Jews.
The Israel Land Authority prioritised members of the Bnei David pre-military academy from the West Bank settlement of Eli, who had formed a settlement group at a temporary camp near Dror.
The residents of Eli, who will now take ownership of the Bedouin land, are comprised of far-right Haredim groups, according to Haaretz.
According to the Israeli government, there was a 400 percent increase in the issuance of demolition orders of Bedouin settlements in 2024, something celebrated by the far-right National Security Minister and extremist settler Itamar Ben Gvir.
“Proud to lead a strong policy of demolishing illegal houses in the Negev!” he wrote on X.
At the time of the demolition of Umm al-Hiran, Nati Yefet, the spokesperson for the Regional Council for Unrecognised Villages in the Negev, said it was part of a “systematic population replacement program in the Negev” and part of a “larger plan to raze unrecognized villages and build new Jewish communities in their place”.
