Just the Facts: Bedouin Rights

  • There are around 40,000 Bedouins in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), most of which are refugees and displaced indigenous tribes.
  • 55 to 79% are food insecure. Some spend 60% of household income on food expenditures.
  • There are around 5,000 Bedouin families in the oPt as well as 5,000 Bedouin and herder families.
  • 41% of Bedouin families do not have a source of electricity.
  • In Area ‘C’, only 225,000 dunums (225 square kilometers/86.9 square miles) are available for the grazing of sheep and goats.
  • For years the Civil Administration has pursued an expulsion plan against Bedouin communities.
  • Israeli settlers in the Jordan valley use nearly 25 times as much water as the nearby Bedouin communities.
  • Israel has been threatening to destroy the school at Al Khan al-Ahmar since 2009 and threatening forcible relocation of the village since 2012.
  • Rahat, the only Bedouin city (population over 65,000), is the poorest in Israel.
  • Negev Bedouins, approximately 250,000 people, are the poorest population in Israel.
  • Bedouin communities comprise three confederations linking 92 tribes.

Sources

Learning More 

To learn more about the Bedouin of Palestine and Israel we suggest you read the IATF’s“The Issue: Negev Bedouin”. And you can watch “High Hopes” from Guy Davidi and Jahalin Solidarity. To go deeper, we will be developing an extensive list of Additional Resources at the bottom of this week’s entry as well as a YouTube playlist on the subject.