Roughly 200,000 Bedouins live in the Negev Desert of Israel, all of them citizens and most of them concentrated in an area around the city of Beersheva. Granted Israeli citizenship in the 1950's, they lived under military rule until the 1960's and have since resisted government attempts to move them into seven larger, recognized towns. Thousands of Bedouin still live in dozens of unrecognized settlements across the northern Negev. If the Prawer-Begin law is passed by Israel's Knesset, as many as 40,000 Bedouins will be forcibly removed from their homes.
A look back at the Bedouin presence in the Negev in photographs, 1900 to the present.
The Bedouins of the Negev Desert, Looking Back Through the Years
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Unrecognized Bedouin Settlement in Israel's Negev Desert
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In this Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 photo an Israeli Bedouin man drinks coffee in his village near the southern city of Beersheva,Israel.
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Bedouin school girls ride a bus back home from Wadi El Naam regional school in the Negev Desert, southern Israel, Feb. 13, 2007. Wadi al Naam is one of dozens of Bedouin communities not recognized by Israel.
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A Bedouin girl plays on a field near an unrecognized village in the northern Negev Desert March 23, 2006.