• The division of Palestine and its effects on the Palestinian Negev brief and its inhabitants

• About the Palestinian Negev

The Negev... Historic Lighting

The Negev desert is located in southern Palestine, with an area of about 13,000 square kilometers. It extends between the Hebron Mountains in the east and Gaza in the west..The outskirts of Ashkelon up to Umm al-Rashrash in the south, the area was historically known by other names such as “Diyar Gaza” or “Beersheba District.”

Date

Human settlement in the Negev is very old and dates back to the beginnings of the Natufian period about 12 thousand years ago. The Beersheba Caves were the height of the Ghassoulinian period (Tilalat al-Ghasul) with the pots, pottery, drawings and antiquities found inside..The Canaanites appeared in the Negev very early (about 6 thousand years ago) and several cities are attributed to them, the most famous of which is Beersheba itself, in addition to important historical ruins and castles such as Tel Arad, andTell Jammah, Tell Al Sharia, Khirbet Arara, and many others.. The historical ruins of Beersheba form a model in ancient irrigation and water storage techniques, and an old copper factory was found in Beersheba,..The Edomites spread in the eastern Negev and had many cities, monuments and fortresses such as Khirbet Gaza, Ain Hassab, Khirbet Al-Katamat, and the spoils of antiquities..The Negev was an extension of the Nabataean state, and the ancient incense road that linked Petra to the ports of Gaza passed through it..The Nabataeans built dozens of palaces, buildings, and inns on both sides of this road, and they also built large cities such as the city of Ubadah (Ubadah)..Which was considered the second capital of the Nabateans and embraces the oldest Arab poetry house in addition to other famous cities such as Al-Khalisa, Sbeita, Al-Rahiba and Nysana (Auja Al-Hafir).The Nabateans also cultivated the lands of the Negev, and were famous for producing wine from grapes grown in the Negev. Traces of Nabataean agriculture still remain in the Negev today and are used by some Bedouins..The Byzantines replaced the Nabateans, but they could not control the Arabs of the Negev completely, so they built a line of defense known as (the Palestinian Lims) to protect their cities in the north from the invasions of the Arabs of the south , and It extended from Umm Baghaq and Zuweira castles at the Dead Sea to the outskirts of Gaza. Beersheba was located on it, and there were found camps and tombs for soldiers.

With the Islamic conquest, the Arab conquerors settled in the Negev, where Beersheba was the headquarters of the leader Amr ibn al-Aas, and traces of several ancient mosques dating back to the beginnings of the Islamic conquest were found in Sbeita Nabatiyeh and an old mosque near Rahat now, and local industries and crafts continued in the Negev, such as soap making. Where the Arabs of the south were the first to make soap from olive oil..The Negev was marginalized and excluded in later Islamic eras, beginning with the Abbasid period, and The Crusaders did not occupy Beersheba, and it remained far from the hands of the Mongols as well.And when the Ottomans entered it, they did not change anything and left it as it is. Rather, its cities were destroyed and vanished, and when Muhammad Ali occupied the Levant ,A revolution erupted in the Negev, which extended to the rest of the Palestinian territories, against Egyptian rule, ..When the Turks returned to rule the south again, they began - at the end of their days - to take an interest in the Arabs of the Negev and try to win them over in the event of a war with Britain occupying Egypt, The Turks reconstructed the city of Beersheba on a site close to the historic city, built a court, a large Bedouin school, and a printing press, and connected it to the Ottoman railways..When the First World War broke out, the Bedouins of Beersheba volunteered and formed a fighting squad that included about 2,000 fighters alongside the Turks in the attack on the Suez Canal..And they were not successful, the battles continued in southern Palestine until the occupation of the city of Beersheba in late 1917, when the Turkish defenses collapsed in Palestine, and as Allenby said: “If Beersheba falls, Jerusalem will be a Christmas present.”

The population of the city of Beersheba at the time of the mandate increased to (three thousand people) The surrounding valleys have a population of more than 90,000 breeze ,They were distributed among the clans of Al-Tarabin, Al-Tayha, Al-Azazama, Al-Jabbarat, Al-Jaraween, Al-Hanajarah, Al-Qudeirat, Al-Zalim, Al-Ahyat and Al-Saeedin. and The Arab tribes gained their livelihood and food from livestock and agriculture, especially in the western and northern regions of the Negev, where the lands are very fertile. and Crops of wheat and barley were planted there, the crops were large, the area was self-sufficient in grain, and it was exporting to the rest of Palestine.

The people of the Negev got involved in the Palestinian struggle early on by forming political parties such as the Arab Bedouin Association or forming small fighting groups that actively participated in the Palestinian revolutions of 1929 and 1936..The Zionists occupied the city of Beersheba at the end of 1948.

The Zionists occupied the city of Beersheba in late 1948, after a fierce battle with volunteer units of the population, Bedouins and some Egyptian soldiers. The Zionists committed a terrible massacre against the residents and prisoners. The Zionists completed the occupation of the Negev in 1949 after the signing of the Rhodes Agreements.. Umm al-Rashrash was handed over to the far south and the army’s pockets were handed over Al-Masry in Fallujah and Auja Al-Hafir..The occupation displaced most of the residents of the Negev in batches, using various pretexts, to Jordan, Sinai, and Gaza, and a small number (about 10 thousand people) remained in the Negev..They were internally displaced and confined to a small area east of Beersheba, which the occupation calls the “fence.” Military rule was imposed on them until 1966, and they did not get their full freedom of movement until the late seventies.

The occupation began in the late sixties with attempts to concentrate the Bedouins in planned areas under their control,He plundered all of their lands and established mountain towns in Al-Saba, Rahat, Al-Hoora, Lakiya, Kusifa, Ara, and Shaqib Al-Salem.Despite this, more than 80,000 Bedouins remained on their lands, which the occupation did not recognize their ownership of, despite their possession of documents dating back to the days of the Ottomans and the British proving their ownership of the lands. and The occupation’s methods of putting pressure on the residents have varied, the most famous of which are the demolition of homes and the leveling of lands; As well as killing livestock and establishing factories that destroy the environment, the most dangerous of all is the Dimona nuclear reactor, whose radiation has caused dozens of cases of cancer in Bedouin families who refused to leave their lands at any cost...Today, the residents of the Negev live marginalized in their country, as the occupation does not recognize their villages and does not provide them with basic services From electricity, water, education and health care, without linking them to the transportation network..While unemployment and poverty rates are increasing in the south, in an attempt by the occupation to subjugate the population To work in jobs that do not fit their agricultural lifestyle, while trying to spread crime and drugs in the Arab community to separate it and distract it from its basic issues.

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