Drive along the desert highways around Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva) in the south of Israel, and it does not take long to notice clusters of makeshift houses set in from the side of the road. These Bedouin villages are ‘unrecognised’ by the state of Israel, and consequently have no official status. They are absent from state planning and government maps, and receive little or no basic public services such as electricity, water, telephone lines, educational or health facilities. In total, about 40 unrecognised villages exist in the Naqab (Negev) desert.

The twin unrecognised villages of Um al-Hiran and Atir, situated about 30km from the city of Beer el-Sabe, are prime examples. Surrounded by an expanse of the Naqab desert, and constructed largely out of corrugated iron and breeze-blocks, these Bedouin villages seem a world away from the nearby Jewish towns of Omer and Nevatim. There, the residents enjoy first-class suburban living conditions, in homes boasting generous, well-watered gardens. The living conditions in unrecognised villages like Um al-Hiran and Atir resemble those of Third-World shanty towns.

First displacement

The residents of Atir and Um al-Hiran, all of them Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel, have lived on these lands since 1956, after the Israeli army uprooted them from their homes in Wadi Zubaleh. Now, nearly half a century after their original transfer, the Sharon government is attempting to expel the community once again, and has filed lawsuits to evict the villagers from their homes.

The older members of the community vividly recall their original transfer. According to 85-year-old Sheikh Haj Abu el-Qian, the community was ordered to evacuate their homes in Wadi Zubaleh over 48 years ago by a written order delivered by the Military Governor. When the community raised objections to this order, the Israeli military began forcibly removing the elders of the tribe who were then either imprisoned or scattered among different Bedouin communities.

Haj Abu el-Qian remembers very clearly that his own father, Issa, was imprisoned on 20 October 1956. He remembers that the army completely demolished his family's home, along with all other Arab Bedouin homes in Wadi Zubaleh. They were then brought to Um al-Hiran with other families of newly-created refugees from the region. He says they were provided with 3,000 dunams of land to live on and cultivate.

When they first settled there, the populations of Um al-Hiran and Atir numbered under 100 people in total. The combined population of the two villages is now between 1,000 and 1,500 people, living in over 200 homes.

Warning notices

Two years ago, warning notices for the demolition of these homes began to arrive, informing residents that the Ministry of the Interior was aware of building taking place without permits. Then, in April 2004, the state of Israel filed a lawsuit to evacuate the villagers from their homes, claiming that the families living in Um al-Hiran and Atir are trespassing on ‘Israel's Lands.’ Some houses now have demolition orders hanging over them. Residents say that homes are threatened with destruction every week. They argue that they have been living on this land for over 48 years, on the instructions given by the military in 1956. Their land in Wadi Zubaleh is now being cultivated by Jewish Israelis living in Kibbutz Shuval, with the government's assent.

The euphemistically termed ‘Sharon Plan’ for the Naqab, launched in April 2003, may indicate the location to which the government expects to transfer these Palestinian citizens of the state. A prime ministerial initiative, the plan aims to concentrate the Bedouin in the Naqab in seven new development towns to complement the seven towns established for Bedouin between the 1970s and 1990s. To that end, 38% of the plan's NIS 1.175 billion (US $265 million) budget is allocated for home demolitions, land dispossession and community transfer.

New Jewish town

According to Adalah's correspondence with Ehud Olmert, Minister for Industry, Trade and Employment, who is charged with ministerial responsibility for the Israel Lands Administration, in 2003 alone, the authorities demolished 120 buildings in unrecognised villages throughout Israel. Most of these buildings were homes.

The lawsuits for the evacuation of were filed by the government to make way for a new Jewish town. In July 2002, the government announced that a Jewish town named Hiran would be established in the area currently inhabited by these Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel. The government's decision on this issue draws heavily on an Israel Lands Administration report from 2001 which recorded plans for the construction of 2,000 housing units for Jewish families in the prospective town of Hiran, and explicitly identifies the Bedouin presence there as ‘a special problem’.

Yet, faced with the prospect of their further evacuation, the villages’ residents appear defiant. Having experienced the ordeal of transfer 48 years ago, they are not willing to be moved again. “Atir is in our blood,” says Sheikh Khalil Abu el-Qian. “We have been building this village since 1956 and we don't know anywhere else. We want our rights to be recognised here. We will not leave.” 

Adalah is currently preparing to launch a legal defence for the residents of Um al-Hiran and Atir against the evacuation lawsuits.