The Bedouin village of al Araqib in the Naqab region, southern Israel, has been demolished by Israeli police for the 116th times since 2010, Palestinian News Agency WAFA has reported.

WAFA quotes witnesses as saying so-called Israel Land Authority, accompanied by Israeli police and bulldozers raided the village and demolished homes, mainly made of tin.

The first demolition of al-Araqib took place in late June 2010 and each time their village has been demolished, residents have rebuilt the homes.

Al-Araqib is one of 35 Bedouin villages considered “unrecognized” by the Israeli government. According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), more than half of the approximately 160,000 Bedouins in the Negev reside in unrecognized villages.

Demolitions targeting Palestinians with Israeli citizenship sharply increased in 2017, according to WAFA.

According to human rights groups, demolition of unrecognized Bedouin villages is a Israeli policy aimed at removing the indigenous Palestinian population from the Negev and transferring them to government-zoned townships, enabling the expansion of Jewish Israeli communities.

Additionally Israeli authorities have also refused to connect unrecognized Bedouin villages to the national water and electricity grids, and have excluded the communities from access to health and educational services.