Sixty thousand residents of the unrecognized villages in the Negev live with lack of access to water. This situation is counter Israeli law as well as to international conventions to which Israel is party. In order to temporarily provide access to water for all residents of the unrecognized villages, “water stations” should be established.

As part of a government plan to evict the residents of the unrecognized villages in the Negev from their land, which includes an aggressive policy of house demolition, Israeli police raided on Wednesday August 4 the unrecognized village of al-Araqib in the Negev, demolishing it in its entirety for the second time in one week. Residents called on left wing activists and volunteers from across the country to assist them in non-violent resistance. Six activists were detained and several residents beaten and injured by police, several of whom required medical attention and referred to the hospital.

In response the petition submitted to the High Court, the Ministry of Health announced yesterday, 10.8.10, the reopening of two of three Mother and Child clinics in the Arab Bedouin villages of Abu Tlul (el-A’asam), Wadi el-Ni’am and Qasr el-Ser (el-Hawashla), in the Negev that had been closed in October of the previously year due to a claim that there were no nurses willing to operate the aforementioned clinics. The petition was submitted by Adalah attorney Sawsan Zaher on behalf of 11 Arab women from the Negev, the head of the local committee of the village Qasr el-Ser, the Yasmin al-Nagab Health Organization, Physicians for Human Rights and the Galilee Society.