Alsra Bedouin Village
The indigenous Bedouin Arabs have eked out an existence in the desert for generations, but despite being citizens of Israel, their communities do not exist officially. Alsra, and others like it, does not appear on any official map, does not connect to any roads, and does not receive basic services from the state, such as electricity or sewage treatment. By contrast, Jewish families have been encouraged to settle in this part of the country to make the desert "bloom" and small, gated farming communities – fully serviced with water and electricity – have sprung up close to the Bedouin villages. Some 160,000 Bedouin live in the Negev, a people whose plight is generally forgotten in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Today, they live on 5 per cent of the Negev, roughly half of them in designated towns; the remainder in 45 villages, 35 of which are still unrecognised and receive no services from the state. Every Bedouin has closely followed the fate of Al Araqib, an hour's drive away from Alsra, which has been destroyed 29 times by Israeli soldiers. The villagers return every time to rebuild, only for the soldiers to knock it down again to make way for the planting of a new forest. Many fear that what is happening in Al Araqib is a "dry run" for the expulsion of Bedouin who resist in other communities. Every family in Alsra has been served with a demolition order by the Israeli authorities.