The huts have been standing in the desert for weeks Negev They have become traps: the roofs under the bombs shatter like knives into splinters. “We are here in Israel but there are no safe areas and when we hear the rockets we don’t know where to go because it is dangerous to stay inside”: Migal al Hawashle Mauda is the head of Al Ghara, West of the Nevatim military air base is located about fifty kilometers from Gaza and is one of 37 villages not recognized by the state.
Although they are not the terrorists’ target, the Bedouins also paid with their blood for the October 7 Hamas attacks and it appears that it is not over for them yet. “Rockets continue to be fired in this area, dozens of them arrive, and we have no warning sirens, no shelters or ambulances, there is no safe area for us,” claims Migal, 63 years old, adding: “Here there is “none.” the Iron Dome that protects us.”
47 days ago, during the massacres, the militiamen broke into houses and also claimed Arab victims: they killed 17 and kidnapped seven (almost all of them were employed in the Israeli kibbutzim), while six more have died from the bombs so far.
But there were also those who managed to save around thirty young people at the Supernova rave that day: Youssef Alziadna, called the “Hero of Israel”, rushed to the scene and managed to scare away as many people as possible by loading up into his minibus. A coordination center has been set up in Rahat, the Bedouin “capital” of the desert, to help survivors. “Some even joined the army as volunteers,” explains Khalil Alamour, an activist who has been a Bedouin representative to the United Nations and the European Parliament.
On the dirt roads of unknown villages, the remains of the rockets that landed in these places merge with the piles of garbage that separate the rooms of sandy soil from the containers powered only by generators and a few solar panels, while children play in them Dust. “When we hear the first rockets hitting,” says Migal, “we run out of our houses instead of hiding somewhere.” We rely on God or fate, while in the early days some boys also set up night patrols with cars Report sightings or explosions in the distance.
There are around 320,000 Bedouins throughout the Negev, including 130,000 in unrecognized villages. “For the latter, who have always been threatened with destruction by bulldozers, the situation has worsened since the beginning of the war,” Khalil adds. According to the data provided, there are around 2,500 evictions from villages every year, including over 800 in the last month alone. Many of them work for Sodastream, a company that produces machines for making lemonade, an economic reference point for the community. Many others who worked on kibbutzim and on Israeli family farms near Gaza have lost guaranteed wages. “Now it is impossible to work,” Khalil claims, “partly because these places have become empty, partly because it is now forbidden: the Bedouins live in Israel, but they are Arabs.”
No protection, right now the only thing that could save them is the nose for missiles. And for people like Migal, trying to expose these places to Hamas fire is not an option: “It would be a shame for our tradition to leave here.”
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