KHIRBET KARKUR, Israel (AP) — An Israeli hostage rescued from Gaza He finds a hero’s welcome tinged with a bitter reality: much of the small village he calls home – Khirbet Karkur – is targeted for demolition.
Qaid Farhad Alkadi, 52, is one of Israel’s estimated 300,000 Bedouin Arabs, a poor and traditionally nomadic minority that has a complicated relationship with the government and often faces discrimination. Although they are Israeli citizens and some serve in the army, about a third of the Bedouin, including Alkadi, live in concentration camps. villages that the government considers illegal and wants to demolish.
Since November, about 70 percent of Khirbet Karkur residents have been notified that the government plans to raze their homes because they were built without permits in a “protected forest” not intended for habitation, according to a lawyer representing them. Alkadi’s family did not receive notice, but the impending mass displacement of the tight-knit community has cast a shadow over what was once a joyous 24 hours.
“It’s so exciting, we didn’t know if he would come back alive or not,” said Muhammad Abu Tailakh, head of the Khirbet Karkur local council and a professor of public health at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba. “But the good news is also a little complicated, because of everything that’s going on.”
Alkadi was greeted by dozens of well-wishers Wednesday and a throng of media. He left the hospital and returned home a day after his dramatic rescue, which he recounted in glowing phone calls with Israel’s prime minister and president.
Neighbors and family erected a huge tent in his honor and served tea and coffee from early in the morning, eagerly awaiting his arrival. When the clean-shaven but emaciated Alkadi arrived — apparently overwhelmed by the attention he had received after 326 days of captivity, some of it in an underground tunnel — he spoke to reporters and implored Israeli leaders to release all the hostages.
“It doesn’t matter whether they are Arab or Jewish, they all have families waiting for them,” said Alkadi, a father of 11 who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 while working as a security guard at a packaging factory near the Gaza border.
“They also want to feel joy,” he said. “I hope, I pray that this stops.”
Alkadi was one of eight Bedouins abducted on October 7, and three are believed to still be alive in captivity; two teenagers were released, one was accidentally killed by the Israeli army and another reported dead remains in Gaza.
On October 7, scores of Bedouins rushed to help attendees of an Israeli music festival, saving hundreds of lives at a time when the army and police were in disarray.
A spokesman for the Israel Lands Authority said that “given the situation,” it would not serve a demolition notice on the Alkadi family. But it declined to comment on the plight of its neighbors or the efforts of their lawyers to save their homes.
On Wednesday, most family members and neighbors tried to focus on the good news, rather than legal battles that could drag on for years.
“We need to solve this problem so that the people here… receive a solution that is tailored to the needs of the Bedouins,” said Nasser Amran, 59, a friend of Alkadi. “There is no electricity. For water, they bring a pipe from a community and the water comes here, but it is still difficult to live in a village without water and electricity as it should be.”
The unrecognized villages are not connected to public water, sewage, or electricity networks, and the roads leading to them, including Khirbet Karkur, are dusty and full of potholes. Khirbet Karkur sits in the shadow of a large landfill, and the smell of rotting garbage wafts over the low, squat corrugated-iron houses. Piles of construction debris and trash surround the small cluster of homes.
Israel’s Supreme Court has already ruled many unrecognized Bedouin villages illegal, and the government has said it is trying to bring order to a lawless area and provide a better quality of life for the poor minority.
For decades, Israel tried to convince scattered groupsOff-grid Bedouin villagers believe it is in their best interest to settle in government-designated Bedouin villages, where the government can provide them with water, electricity and schools. Bedouin leaders have rejected many proposals, saying they would not allow them to live in Bedouin villages. destroy their way of life or send them to less desirable areas.
According to the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, which tracks demolitions in the Bedouin community, 1,325 Bedouin homes were demolished in the first six months of 2024, a 51 percent increase over the same period in 2022.
The increase in demolitions coincided with the rise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and other members of his party have constantly defended the demolition of illegal Bedouin buildings in the Negev desert and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Ben-Gvir traveled last year witness a demolition himself, expressing his “congratulations” and calling the destruction “sacred work.”
Abu Tailkha says he and his neighbors want to maintain their rural lifestyle and that the government should officially recognize their villages. He added that the residents of Khirbet Karkur, who were settled there in the 1950s by the government, would be willing to move to another rural area, but not to a city.
Netta Amar Shiff, a lawyer representing the families who received demolition notices, said the government wants to move them north to Rahat, an urban Bedouin settlement of about 70,000 people. She called it “disgusting cynicism” that the government said it would not prosecute Alkadi’s family.
“If there’s a good reason one person doesn’t get the notice, there’s a good reason for everyone,” she said.
Regavim, a right-wing group that studies land issues in Israel and supports the government’s Bedouin relocation plan, said the Bedouin are being offered a great deal with free land, and that it is in their best interest to relocate in order to receive the services to which every Israeli citizen is entitled.
“Israel cannot provide services to people who build wherever they want,” said Naomi Kahn, head of Regavim’s international division.
The unrecognized villages lack adequate air raid shelters or rocket warning systems, and at least 11 Bedouins have been killed by rockets fired into Israel since the war began.
“The whole country is at war, and I have to fight against this demolition order as well,” said Abu Tailkha, the head of the Khirbet Karkur local council.
Abu Tailkha said that while the country and its leaders welcome Alkadi’s return, he is not optimistic about real change in their village.
“I think they will soon forget about Farhan and send a new round of demolition orders,” he said.
