Isabelle
Humphries reports from Palestine on the plight of the forgotten
Bedouin children of the Negev desert and the deliberate
environmental and health hazards they face, lest the world
remember them this World Health Day.
10-year-old
Asad Qraini survived the Israeli assault on his home in Jenin
camp, only to be killed by stepping on unexploded ammunition in
the destroyed camp that the Israelis left behind. Five boys in
Gaza from the same family were also killed when they stumbled on
an explosive device left by the Israeli military. The boys, aged
between 6 and 14, were killed on their way to school by a device
planted in a sand dune, claimed by Israeli military sources to
have been a trap for ‘militants’.
The
international community has failed to protect Palestinian children
from the devastating effects of war. Children have been killed as
bystanders to assassinations, not to mention those who have been
deliberately targeted. But it is not only direct Israeli military
attack that creates a dangerous environment for children to grow
up in.
Growing
Up ‘Unrecognized’
|
|
|
Carcinogenic
zinc roofs result in burns for the children
|
The infant mortality rate in the community (19 per 1000) is four
times higher than in the Jewish sector. Chemical dumping from
Israeli industry occurs close to residential areas. Parents bring
their children to the local hospital with first, second and third
degree burns from the zinc roofs of their makeshift homes, which
can reach temperatures of up to 55º C degrees. The Israeli
Ministry of Environment warns that zinc is a dangerous, cancer
causing building material, yet Israel will not let Arabs in the
officially ‘unrecognized’ villages build permanent stone
structures to enable them to bring up their children in a safer
environment.
You
might be surprised to find out that I am not talking about
Palestinian villages in the West Bank or Gaza, but the situation
for Palestinian Bedouin children living in the unrecognized
villages in the Naqab (Negev) desert. The Negev is on the other
side of the Green Line, in the area that Israel occupied in 1948.
Technically, the 120,000 Bedouin of the Negev are Israeli citizens
and carry Israeli passports, but this makes little difference in
terms of Israeli policy. Like the rest of the one million strong
Palestinian community living inside Israel, the Israeli government
fails to provide a safe environment for Bedouin citizens in which
to bring up the new generation.
Israel
has built a power station next to the unrecognized Bedouin village
of Wadi Al Naim. “The children of Wadi Al Naim get the side
effects of radiation, not the benefits of electricity,” Maha
Qupty told IslamOnline. Qupty is the Development Director of the
Regional Council for the Palestinian Bedouin of the Unrecognized
Villages in the Negev (RCUV).
The
Regional Council, (an NGO and not an official municipality),
represents the 70,000 plus Bedouin (half of the Bedouin in the
Negev) of the 45 villages that Israel has failed to
‘recognize’, even though many have been there since before
1948. Many of these villages do not have access to such basic
services as piped water and the electricity network.
Because
Bedouin children from these villages are growing up in a
residential area that is officially ‘illegal’, the Israeli
government does nothing to protect the health and livelihood of
the community. On the contrary, Israeli policy serves to make life
as difficult and as uncomfortable as possible, in order to
encourage Bedouin to leave and move to one of the seven
‘official’ townships: large ghetto towns created to hold the
Bedouin and cut them off from their natural environment.
Human
Rights Violations
|
|
|
Scene
from a Bedouin village Photo by PHR-Israel |
Bedouin children in the Negev, while holding Israeli passports,
are brought up in an environment completely different from their
Israeli-Jewish peers, whether in Tel Aviv or a rural settlement in
the West Bank. The head of the children’s department at the
Negev Soroka hospital claims that 90% of child patients are
Bedouin, even though they only represent 25% of the Negev
population.
The
RCUV is working in conjunction with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)-Israel,
to complete a comprehensive survey of ten villages to present
evidence of the poor health in the community, evidence that is
likely to demonstrate a direct connection with the environment in
which they live.
Large
numbers of children come to medical clinics and hospitals
suffering from respiratory diseases, burning eyes, dizziness and
other complaints that would seem to be directly related to the
fact that they live in a highly polluted environment. At the
beginning of April, the government again sent airplanes to spray
Bedouin crops with poison, to kill existing crops and to prevent
them farming on ‘illegal’ land. What kind of effect will such
crop poison have on children playing in the area? Why is there a
higher miscarriage rate among Bedouin women?
Further
investigation is essential to protect the health of this
vulnerable community. PHR-Israel notes that dangerous chemicals
and gases emitted from the Ramat Hovav industrial area are
affecting the lives of some 4000 Bedouin living in the area.
“Little is known of the long term effects of these
conditions…a prime example of the blatant disregard towards the
lives of the people in the ‘unrecognized villages,’” states
the PHR-Israel website.
The
medical human rights group also draws attention to the lack of
sanitary conditions, sewage infrastructure and waste disposal,
which have a direct relationship to the health of residents.
“Garbage piles are a source of diseases and insects, in addition
to poisonous creatures including venomous snakes. The inhabitants
gather the garbage and burn it every once in awhile, however the
smoke caused by the garbage can be harmful and most unpleasant. In
situations like these, sudden winds are liable to cause
uncontrolled fires to break out.” And if there is a fire,
government fire services rarely reach the site on time.
Deadly
Development
Israel
is making the living environment and conditions for the Bedouin so
difficult that it can be inferred that the government hopes that
the Bedouins will eventually be forced to move on, even if they
are not forcibly transferred. The Israeli development plan for the
Negev, pioneered by Sharon whose own ranch is in the Negev, will
implement the building of new industrial and chemical plants and
military firing zones to be completed by 2020. The development of
the living conditions for the Negev Bedouin, needless to say, is
not a part of the plan for the region.
“The children of Wadi Al Naim get the side effects of radiation, not the benefits of electricity.”
Maha
Qupty
Devpt. Director of RCUV |
|
Poor
quality of water and insufficient wastewater systems also
contribute to the poor health of Bedouin children. For example,
two open sewers from the Israeli settlement of Arad flow past the
neighboring Bedouin villages. While the whole Bedouin community is
vulnerable to environmental pollution, children are weaker than
adults and succumb quicker to illness. Children also require safer
surroundings in which to fully develop and grow. There are no
public recreation areas in the Bedouin villages, so it is
impossible for parents to monitor that children are playing in
clean areas. Water-related sickness such as diarrhea or more
dangerous diseases such as typhoid are prevalent amongst the
Bedouin community.
Nuclear
Negev
|
|
|
Picture
of the Dimona reactor dome taken by Mordechai Vanunu |
Bedouin
of unrecognized villages are excluded from many official Israeli
statistics due to their ‘illegal’ locations, but there is
another aspect of environment-related health in the Negev that the
government will go to any lengths to see that it is not
investigated.
It
is well known that Israel’s nuclear program is developed in the
Negev from Dimona. While Israel is not recognized by the West as a
nuclear-armed country, no official investigation and protection of
citizens who might be exposed to the dangers of nuclear radiation
or accident is carried out.
A recent BBC documentary investigated the kidnapping and solitary
confinement of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear
whistleblower. As part of the research, the journalist tried to
investigate incidents of cancer amongst Israeli workers at the
plant. She met a blank and refusals at every turn, owing to the
Israeli security cover-up of activities on the site. If Israel
still will not allow public investigation of cancer among Jewish
workers, it will be even more difficult to address the issue of
the link between cancer amongst the Bedouin in the area of nuclear
activity.
If
a Bedouin parent needs to take a child to receive medical
attention, even in an emergency, they could have to travel up to
35km to the nearest clinic using their own form of transport.
Israeli ambulances will not come to unrecognized Bedouin villages,
and even in ‘recognized’ towns, streets are so poorly paved
that ambulances will not come directly to many houses.
So
it is not only the Palestinian children of the West Bank and Gaza
who are adversely affected by Israeli action and development
policy of their local environment. For those who claim that
Israel’s disruption and damage to the lives of Palestinian
children is a sad and inevitable part of its security policy, a
look at the way Bedouin children, officially Israeli citizens, are
treated is a clear indication of deliberate discrimination against
non-Jewish children. It is worth noting that, usually for
financial reasons, some Bedouin actually serve in the Israeli
army. Despite poverty and discrimination, Bedouin rarely take part
in anti-government Palestinian political activity inside the 1948
borders. Even this demonstration of ‘loyalty’ from the Bedouin
community to Israel, fails to win the protection of the Jewish
state.
Sources:
Isabelle
Humphries is a British freelance journalist and
Development Director at Sawt Al Amel (Laborer’s Voice), an
organization supporting Palestinian workers inside Israel. She has
an MA in Middle East Politics and is also a freelance writer for
the Cairo Times. You can reach her at innazareth@yahoo.co.uk
