Arab Association for Human Rights Fact-sheet on the Naqab (Negev)

The Arab Bedouin are the indigenous inhabitants of the Negev and represent approximately 12% of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. Prior to 1948, they lived from agriculture and raising livestock. During the 1948 war, the majority of the Negev’s Bedouin were driven out or fled the state’s borders. The remaining tribes were rounded up and spent the next 18 years under military rule in an enclosure zone. During this period, a number of laws were used to dispossess them of their traditional lands. Today approximately 110,000 Arab Bedouin live in the Negev, half in the poorest recognised localities in Israel. (1) The other half of the Bedouin population lives in villages unrecognised by the state. They are denied all forms of basic services and infrastructure, and are unable to build or develop their communities in any way.

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