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Israel does not provide infrastructure to Bedouin villages 'unrecognised' by the state, and residents must organise their own water supplies. (Photo: Marjie Sackett, AIC)

Bustan: Sustainable Community Action for Land and People (www.bustan.org), together with LifeSource recently conducted a critical “Negev Unplugged Tour” that provided an in-depth, first hand look at water and sanitation issues plaguing the Bedouin communities of the Negev desert.  

In an effort to coerce the Bedouin to move from their land and into one of the seven Israeli state-initiated “townships”, the Israeli government purposely denies the Bedouin community adequate access to water.  The Bedouin, who possess Israeli citizenship, are indigenous inhabitants of the Negev and have lived in the area for thousands of years, but after the 1948 Middle East war their numbers were significantly reduced as many fled or were expelled during the war. From 1948-1966, the Israeli military administration forcibly transferred the Bedouin from most of the Negev area and resettled them in the northern part of the area, which constitutes only 2% of the Negev desert territory.  In 1963 a process of ‘Bedouin urbanization’, as a way of concentrating their population, was started by the Israeli government with the claim that 80% of the land in the Negev is a military training zone and national park, prohibited for non-governmental purposes.

One of the main reasons of this strategy is that the Negev lies in a strategic location between the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the passageway to Eliat and the Red Sea.  For ‘security’ reasons, the Israeli government does not want a non-Jewish population to bridge the divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by occupying the land area in between, and are doing everything in their power to ensure that this does not happen.  While access to clean and sufficient water is a fundamental human right which should not be denied to any person based on their race or religion, Israel continues to deny the Bedouin the basic infrastructure needed for them to lead their desired traditional lifestyle.  By uprooting the Bedouin from their land and forcing them to move into one of the Israeli established townships, the Israeli government is not only obliging them to give up their land claims, but denying them the ability to pursue their traditional Bedouin way of life since there is no room within the townships to raise herds or to farm.

There are seven government planned townships the first of which, Tel Sheva, was established in 1967. While the townships currently house half of the approximately 160,000 Bedouin of the Negev, their infrastructure and services are grossly inferior to those of neighbouring Jewish municipalities. The remaining half of the Bedouin population lives in nearly 45 villages in the Negev deemed illegal and “unrecognized” by the Israeli government. While these villages are home to hundreds of people, unrecognized villages do not appear on any official maps, and the Bedouin inhabitants are considered by the government to be squatters and trespassers on state land.  They are cut off from the most fundamental of services like water, electricity, and sewage, in addition to lacking any health or education services. Many of these villages also lack adequate roads, and building any kind of permanent structures is not permitted.  As a result, the Bedouin live under continuous threat of home demolition, crop destruction and displacement by the Green Patrol, a government open-spaces policing unit. 

The unrecognized village of Twail Abu Jarmal, the first stop during the tour, is a prime example of the harsh conditions imposed on the Bedouin by the Israeli Green Patrol.  In the past year the village has been systematically destroyed twenty times, approximately once per month, forcing many of the villagers to move to one of the townships.  Villagers still living in Twail Abu Jarmal have access to water only through a shared water source a few kilometers away.  Two to three times a week villagers have to pull water tankers by tractor down to the shared water source to bring water to their homes and for their flock.  The collection of water is an expensive, due to gas prices, and time consuming process.  The collected water is stored in containers which stand for days in the sun, exposing the water to contamination with rust, algae and bacteria.

Access to the shared water sources is the responsibility of the villagers, both financially and physically.  Some Bedouin villagers have to travel as far as 10 km in each direction just to transport water for their homes.  According to a 2006 report by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, there are 254 water connections among the unrecognized Bedouin villages, equating to about 250 people sharing each connection.  Around 47% of villages have been able to create connections between these points and their homes via black rubber above ground pipelines.  During the summer, the water coming from the pipelines is boiling hot, while in the winter it is freezing cold and can often harden in the pipes.  This method of water transportation also provides a breeding ground for contamination from rust, algae, fungus and other water born diseases; exemplified by the fact that 85% of children admitted to the Beersheva Children’s Hospital are Bedouin suffering from dysentery and other water related parasites.  Additionally, the poor water quality has led to an infant mortality rate in the Bedouin community of 15.7 per 1000 live births, compared to the general population rate of 4.7 per 1000 live births.  Due to the insufficient quantities of water supplied through the water points, the average water consumption of the Bedouin is only 90 liters of water per person per day, in comparison to the general Israeli population’s consumption of 350 liters of water per person per day.  The World Health Organization provides that humans need an average of 100 liters of water per day to survive, yet the Israeli government only allots an average of 22.7 liters of water per day per person for the Bedouin in the Negev. 

The water disparity between the Jewish villages and the Bedouin villages is expounded even more during the second stop on the Bustan tour.  At this stop participants see the stark contrast between the Jewish village of Omer, Israel’s second wealthiest town, and the unrecognized Bedouin village of Ammra. These towns are only steps from one another, but in reality the lives of their residents are worlds apart. Omer is lush, green, and prosperous while Ammra is dry and dilapidated; residents living in tin shacks with barely enough water to drink.