The Gazan village of Dhaniya, home to Palestinians and Egyptian Bedouin who collaborated with the Israeli security services, was dismantled at the same time as the Jewish settlements.
Some of the former Dahaniya residents, all originally Egyptian Bedouin, have been moved to a camp of tents in the Negev desert in Israel, near the small town of Arad, close to the Dead Sea.
Heat and wind
In 40C heat and largely exposed to the desert wind, approximately 100 people live in a group of tents and temporary shacks. There is no power or water supply.
Water tanker
Water comes in a tanker delivered by Israeli soldiers, though the Bedouins say this is not reliable and they often run out and are forced to beg for water from other Bedouin tribes in the area.
Community leader
The leader of the community, who did not want to be named, has asked the Israeli authorities to take them back to Egypt, which they left in the mid-1970s.
Most of the Bedouin in the camp do not have the papers that would allow them access to health services, schools or other social services in Israel. Most of them have no chance of getting work.
Useless possessions
Though Bedouins, since leaving Egypt 30 years ago, the former resident of Dahaniya have lost the habits and experience of living in desert conditions.
Techniques for preserving water appear to be lost on the camp dwellers.
Some possessions, transported from Gaza, are useless in the Bedouin’s current living conditions. (stove/oven shown in picture)
Limited compensation
Each family received between $5,000 and $10,000 as compensation for being moved from Gaza, far less than the compensation paid to the Jewish settlers also evicted. But without opportunities of work, this is being eaten into on a daily basis.
Unbuilt homes
The Israeli authorities announced plans five years ago to build eight villages for various groups of Arab Bedoiun living in Israel. These have not come to fruition. The former residents of Dahaniya have been promised homes in these villages when they are built.
Isolation
The Bedouin in this camp are seen by Palestinians and Israeli Arabs as traitors and collaborators.
Arab members of the Israeli parliament are not prepared to take up their cause and help improve their conditions.
Occasionally, at night, shots are fired at the camp from a distance. The camp residents say they feel more isolated now that when they lived, protected by the Israeli army, in Dahaniya in Gaza.
