Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel

Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel are rural Bedouin communities in the Negev and the Galilee which the Israeli government does not recognize as legal. Often they are referred to as "unrecognized villages".

The exact number of unrecognized villages is unknown. Different bodies use different definitions of the term "village". As a result, numbers offered by them differ, but there is an increase in the last decade, in spite of a slow recognition process of some of these communities.

According to Maha Qupty, representing the Bedouin advocacy organization RCUV, in 2004 there were 45 unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev. According to the Human Rights Watch report based upon the 2006 statistics offered by the Adva Center, approximately half of Bedouin citizens of Israel (85,000 out of 170,000) live in 39 such villages.

According to another Bedouin advocacy organization The Association of Forty, in 2013 there were about 92 unrecognized villages in Israel, 59 of them were Bedouin villages in the Negev.

According to the head of the Bedouin Administration, Yaakov Katz, and geographer Arnon Soffer, in the Negev area alone, there were about 1000 illegal Bedouin concentrations with over 64,000 homes in 2011, with about 2200-2000 new buildings adding every year. For comparison, in 2008 the Goldberg Commission stated that there were 50,000 illegal buildings in the Negev, and about 1,500 to 2,000 more were built every year.

Testifying before the Goldberg Committee in 2010, Israeli right-wing NGO Regavim reported 2,100 separate concentrations in Negev of 3–400 constructions each, covering over 800,000 dunams.

According to the Israel Land Administration, Negev Bedouin claim area 12 times bigger than that of Tel Aviv.

According to Prof. Sofer, the Bedouin make up about 2% of the Israeli population, but the unrecognized Bedouin communities spread on a vast territory and occupy more than 10 percent of Israel – north and east to Be'er Sheva. According to him, the Negev Bedouin also started to settle west of Be'er Sheva and close to Mount Hebron. Their communities spread south to Dimona and towards the Judean Desert. They occupy large spaces near Retamim and Revivim and get close to the Gaza Strip, occupy land in the central Negev near Mitzpe Ramon, and even close to the central area. In 2010 alone about 66 illegal Bedouin settlements were established in the area of Rehovot and Rishon LeZion. According to Arnon Sofer, the illegal Bedouin expansion continues rapidly in all directions and occupies spaces that Israel did not know before.

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