General Background

Sahal al-Baggār is an unrecognized Bedouin village of some 300 residents which predates the State of Israel. The village’s name stems from Wadi Baggār (Boker stream) which runs nearby. Adjacent to the village are two cemeteries and two water cisterns which have served the villagers in the past.

Services and Infrastructure

Education and health services are not offered in Sahal al-Baggār at all, and its residents are forced to travel long distances to receive them. Pre-school and elementary school children attend the “Ein Ovdat” school five kilometres away in the village of ʿAbdih. High school students are bussed daily to the Bedouin town of Šgīb as-Salām (sixty kilometres away) or to Bīr Haddāj village (thirty kilometres away). In order to receive medical services, the residents of Sahal al-Baggār travel to the city of Yeruham (twenty-five kilometres away), Mitzpe Ramon (thirty kilometres away), or the town of Šgīb as-Salām (sixty kilometres away).

The residents have one water source on the main highway, two and a half kilometers from the houses in the village. The villagers have independently run a pipe to connect their houses to running water and they are personally responsible for its upkeep. The village is not connected to the national electricity grid and the villagers supply their own electricity by means of solar panels and generators.

Threats

In the last few years the various planning committees have discussed the possibility of establishing a new settlement in the vicinity of Sahal al-Baggār and transferring to it the unrecognized villages in the area. Such discussions have been ongoing since 2006 – when the plan for the settlement’s establishment was submitted to the District Planning Committee.

In 2014, a decision was made in principle by the planning sub-committee in the Planning Administration to establish a permanent settlement at Sahal al-Baggār, north of ʿAbdih. It was decided to call it “Ramat Tziporim” and to concentrate all the Bedouin communities in the Negev Highlands, over a thousand dunams. The residents of Sahal al-Baggār/ Ramat Tziporim, who had been negotiating for their recognition with the state for many years, welcomed the decision.

However, the issue was later returned to the Regional Council for Planning and Construction at the initiative of the Authority for Development and Settlement of the Bedouin in the Negev. The Regional Council then changed its decision and recommended canceling the plan for Sahal al-Baggār/Tziporim and establishing the village of ʿAbdih instead. Recognition of the village requires additional approval by the government. Residents of Sahal al-Baggār/ Ramat Tziporim, who oppose this decision, announced that they intend to fight it.

In addition to the village, the Authority for the Development and Settlement of the Bedouin in the Negev plans to set up three more tourism complexes in the area for the Arab Bedouin residents. While the Bedouin demand that they be allowed to live near the tourist complexes (and the Ramat Negev Council supports them), the Authority for Development and the Ministry of Tourism object to this possibility. Moreover, the decision of the National Council for Planning and Construction states that it will not be possible to establish housing units adjacent to the tourist complexes.

The distinction between the definition of a Bedouin tourism project and a Jewish one that will allow individual Jewish citizens to work and sleep in their tourist complexes but would prevent this from Arab Bedouin citizens is highly discriminatory.