Palestinians in Negev village protest Israeli police violence, raids

Hundreds of 1948 Palestinians protested on Thursday against Israeli police attacks on their village that took place over the past week.

Bedouin Palestinians from the village of Abu Talul, which is in the Naqab (Negev) desert in southern Israel chanted slogans against police raids and assaults on residents including women and children, among other violent measures.

Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian Bedouin community has faced state policies of dispossession, displacement, and home demolitions.

More than half of the 160,000 Bedouins in Israel's Negev desert live in villages not recognised by the state, leaving them without water, electricity, and other basic infrastructure.

Israeli authorities have consistently drawn criticism for allegedly failing to tackle intra-Palestinian violence within Israel's 1948 boundaries. Palestinian citizens of Israel are often at odds with the Israeli police, an institution they believe is doing little to stop the gun crime epidemic within their community.

Gun violence in the indigenous Palestinian community in Israel accounts for over 60 percent of all murder victims nationwide despite making up just over 20 percent of the population. There are more than 400,000 illegal weapons among Palestinian citizens of Israel, who number just over two million.

A study conducted earlier this year for the Israeli parliament found that male Palestinian citizens of Israel were over 30 times more likely to be a victim of gun crime than their Jewish counterparts.