Alex Masi

Khandra, a 55-year-old Bedouin woman, is making the bread in her house in the unrecognised village of Wadi el Na'am, pop. 4000, close to Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negev, a large deserted area in the south of Israel. Wadi el Na'am is located near a large industrial site, Ramat Hovav, and has no infrastructure or electric energy. Water is provided only via storage tanks. It has no health services as the only clinic is deemed illegal and bound to be demolished, as the rest of the structures in the area. 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.