On the night of September 4th, the Israeli army delivered a demolition order for a small taboun oven to the inhabitants of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Kheer. A lawyer representing the village obtained a two-day stop-demolition order from the Israeli High Court, temporarily delaying the demolition.

In addition to the taboun oven, eleven structures in the village are slated for demolition, and residents of the village fear that those structures, and possibly others, could be destroyed during the demolition of the oven. “The army has come to our village twice before to demolish houses” said Suleiman, a resident of Umm al-Kheer. “Whenever they come, they destroy five or six buildings. They won’t come and destroy just an oven, and then leave.”

The Israeli army delivered the demolition order on the oven back in 2010, after settlers from the nearby settlement of Karmel complained about smoke. “When you start this oven, there is about five minutes of smoke, and then it burns for two weeks without making any smoke,” said Suleiman.

According to Suleiman, the Israeli army initially offered to provide a gas oven for the village to use, but then retracted the offer. The army will not allow the village to build a structure around the oven to contain the smoke.

Umm al-Kheer is a Bedouin village in C area (under Israeli civil and military administration) and is close to the Israeli settlement of Karmel, which is considered illegal under international law. The demolition order is part of a clear strategy to push the Bedouins away from the area around the settlement. In October 2008 the Israeli army demolished ten house-tents in order to clear the area for expansion of the Karmel settlement. The demolitions left 60 people homeless. In July 2009 some toilets were destroyed too, because they were considered "illegal" for the israeli amministration.