Bedouin woman with her herd in the unrecognised Bedouin village of Um Matnan, close to Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negev, a large deserted area in the south of Israel. Their house has been demolished together with other four, a month before the picture was taken. The five families now live where they used to keep their camels. Numbering around 200.000 in Israel, the Bedouins constitute the native ethnic group of these areas, they farm, grow wheat, olives and live in complete self sufficiency. Many of them were in these lands long before the Israeli State was created and their traditional lifestyle is now threatened by subtle Governmental policies. The seven Bedouin towns already built are all between the 10 more impoverished towns in Israel..
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