Hamas Prevents Mass Pro-Bedouin Protest in Gaza
Hamas internal police dispersed a large protest opposing Israel’s Brawer-Begin Bill, which will displace thousands of Palestinian Bedouins currently residing in Israel.
The Israeli Knesset’s approval of the Brawer Bill in late June 2013 has been widely opposed by the Bedouin Arab community inside Israel and has prompted a strong response from Palestinians and their political leadership inside the Palestinian territories.
The Israeli plan which passed its first reading in the Israeli Knesset on June 24 intends to displace tens of thousands of the Bedouin inhabitants in the Naqab (Negev), who constitute part of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel, from their homes and lands in the Naqab in southern Israel.
In the Gaza Strip, the Brawer-Begin Bill has generated a public outcry as protests against the Israeli plan were planned in Gaza’s Central Square on Monday, July 15. The Israeli bill, moreover, has been similarly and strongly denounced by Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip.
The protests in Gaza, which were called for via a Facebook page and succeeded in attracting thousands, did not actually come to fruition. The protest lasted for only fifteen minutes before protesters were asked to leave by Hamas security. No sooner had tens of protesters started gathering in Gaza’s main square El-Jundi El-Majhool (the Unknown Soldier’s Square), than Hamas internal security personnel arrived at the scene and ordered the protesters to disperse for “failing to license the protest by the Ministry of Interior.”
