National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on Wednesday at the MUNI EXPO 2026 local government conference that enforcement against illegal construction in the Negev will not be softened, despite plans by Bedouin communities to stage a large protest over home demolitions. He said the state failed to address illegal building for years, but added, “When I came, nobody dealt with it. Just in the last year we demolished 5,700 illegal homes.”
Ben Gvir was responding to reports that families whose homes were demolished had moved into educational facilities in southern Israel. He said he had been told of threats against him, including claims that Bedouin residents displaced by the demolitions had taken over and were sleeping in a school in Tel Arad because, as he put it, “Ben Gvir is demolishing our homes.”
The minister made clear he has no intention of changing policy. “Let them sleep in many schools, prepare many places, because I am going to demolish for them more and more,” he said. He framed the campaign as enforcement against illegal construction rather than against the Bedouin public as a whole.
Ben Gvir said legal builders are welcome and law-abiding residents deserve support, but he rejected any tolerance for illegal building. “Whoever builds legally, welcome. Whoever is normative, I will embrace him. But whoever builds illegally, there is no reason that a citizen builds and within two days they come and demolish it, and in the Bedouin diaspora there were those they did not touch,” he said.
