The small village of al-Araqib, near Beersheva, has become a test case for the government, with the authorities destroying the entire village more than 80 times over the past five years.
Last month the Israeli Supreme Court also approved the demolition of another Bedouin village, Umm al-Hiran, to make way for an exclusive Jewish town on its land.
But there are severe problems too in the 120 or so recognized Arab communities in the Galilee and Triangle areas in the north and centre of the country, where 20,000 homes are ruled illegal.
In most cases it is because they are built in communities either lacking a state-approved master plan or with a long out-dated master plan that fails to take account of the Palestinian minority's growth, said Morany.
Umm al-Fahm, the second largest Palestinian town in Israel after Nazareth, with a population of 50,000, has no master plan, making all its homes illegal.
A change in approach has been blocked because planning committees, dominated by Jewish officials, have refused to abandon the state's Judaisation policy, said Swaid.
Recent research based on interior ministry data showed that no Palestinian citizen held a professional position on any of Israel's planning committees, which oversee and approve community master plans. Further, none of the 74 staff of the interior ministry's Planning Authority was Arab.
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