Police and other security forces arrived this morning at a fire area near Tselim base in the south to evacuate Bedouin who had invaded the area with hundreds of sheep. The invaders called in reinforcements from the Dodge Bir, threw stones at the police, confronted the forces and even tried to run over one of the inspectors.
This event coincides with a confrontation between government ministers over the promotion of the new five-year plan for the Negev. In recent weeks, the previous five-year plan (2397) ended with a total budget of about NIS 3 billion, which included the allocation of NIS 200 million for afforestation, land conservation and enforcement operations. In the draft of the new five-year plan that was supposed to go up this week for government approval, not a single shekel was allocated for these actions, and the enforcement chapter was cut from the draft plan.
The Regavim movement warns that the approval of a five-year plan that will include only the transfer of budgets to the Bedouin authorities, without allocating resources to the enforcement authorities, will cause long-term damage to the governance situation in the Negev.
Meir Deutsch, director general of the Regavim movement, says that “the increase in enforcement operations in the Negev over the past year is the result of government decisions and budgets allocated for this purpose in 2017. Currently, without the enforcement chapter, the new five-year plan for the Negev shuts down , Will appear in the coming years. It is in no way permissible to approve a plan that includes only carrots, without any stick on their side. “