Alex Masi

Rahim, a 45-year-old Bedouin man, is looking through the hole in the ceiling of his house in unrecognised village of Tarrabin el Sana, close to Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negev, a large deserted area in the south of Israel. Floods are common in unrecognised villages as Bedouins live in makeshift self-built shacks. The village, bordering the wealthy Israeli settlement of Omer, is surrounded by barbed wire and bound to be demolished as it is deemed illegal by the authorities, willing to further expand Omer's borders. Numbering around 200.000 in Israel, the Bedouins constitute the native ethnic group of these areas, they farm, grow wheat, olives and live in complete self sufficiency. Many of them were in these lands long before the Israeli State was created and their traditional lifestyle is now threatened by subtle Governmental policies. The seven Bedouin towns already built are all between the 10 more impoverished towns in Israel.