Al-Araqeeb ( ) is an unrecognized village of the Al-Turi Arab Bedouin tribe, five miles (8 km) north of Beersheba demolished and rebuilt over 197 times. History The At-Turi cemetery of the Al-Araqeeb Bedouin dates back to 1914. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Israel began to displace the Bedouin of the Negev desert, and by 1953 had expelled 90% of the roughly 100,000 people in the northern Negev. According to Eyal Weizman, various methods, from strafing to massacres and tent burning were employed, and the refugees moved to Gaza and the West Bank. The survivors were swept into a more salinated area, into a reservation, known as Siyāj. The Bedouin who came from Al-Araqib ("Gentle Hills"), such as the al-Tūris and al-‘Uqbis have nonetheless persisted in returning to their ancestral lands, and their village lies precisely on the 200mm RPA (rainfall per annum) drawn by Israeli meteorologists on the basis of a schema developed by Wladimir Köppen to define cultivable land from the desert. Two archives have been established to document the local Bedouins rights to their land, one by Nūri al-‘Uqbi and another by Israeli geographer Oren Yiftachel. Israeli courts have so far rejected suits to reclaim this land, refusing, according to Weizman, to acknowledge Bedouin tenure south of the 200 mm line, which is reserved for kibbutzim and moshavim. In 2012 an Israeli court turned down a suit by the al-'Uqbis to have their title, based on a claim of continuous cultivation, recognized by the state. The Jewish National Fund planned to include the land of Al-Araqeeb in a new forestation project in the Negev Desert called Ambassadors' Forest, honoring the assistance provided to Israel by the world's diplomatic corps. This plan spurred objection from some Bedouin living in Rahat and several villages nearby. In July 2010 the village was demolished by 1,300 police officers, acting under orders of the Israel Land Administration. After a six-year-long court case, in a precedent-setting ruling on March 15, 2012, the Beersheba District court ruled against the six lawsuits brought by Al-Uqbi family, which claimed their private ownership of land in the Al-Araqeeb area. Based upon the experts' testimony and the presented evidence, the judge ruled that this land belongs to the State. The court ruling was left disregarded - the Bedouin came back to the place 59 times to rebuild the structures, but each time they were razed back by the