The brutal Hamas attacks have hit Israel’s Bedouin community of the Negev desert especially hard. Among the 1,400 killed in the Hamas onslaught on October 7, at least 19 were Bedouins. Some were gunned down by Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel’s southern envelope, while others were killed by rockets that hit their Negev villages. Six Bedouins were also kidnapped, with two released during the previous cease-fire’s prisoner-hostage exchange.

At Abu Talul, a Bedouin village of nearly 3,000 residents situated less than 10 miles east of Beer Sheva in the Negev desert, the principal of the local elementary school, Kamal Abu Haduba, described the psychological distress affecting his students. He told the Sun that the events of October 7 and the constant rocket sirens have triggered severe anxiety among them, exacerbated by the school’s lack of bomb shelters.

“We feel the impact of the war much more this time around,” Mr Haduba told the Sun.

He said students were completely disconnected from the staff during the first month of the war, when school was not in session, as they don’t have cellphones or laptops in part because of their overall difficult economic situation.

Livelihoods of some of the students’ families have been cut short. Some of the students have parents and older siblings who worked on Jewish farms near the Gaza border that were destroyed or severely damaged in the Hamas attacks.  

Others in the Bedouin community are grieving beloved family members murdered in the Hamas attacks. The Al-Quran family of Alba’at, a small Bedouin village in the Negev, is reeling from a direct hit by a Hamas rocket that took the lives of four children in their extended family.

“We have never experienced this kind of attack before. Most of the rockets reach west in the Beer Sheva area. We never even considered how to react in times of rocket attacks and therefore had no knowledge of what to do in this kind of situation,” Ibrahim Al-Quran told The New York Sun.

Mr. Al-Quran, a father of three, lost two children, Jawad, 13, and Malek, 15, in addition to two nephews, Amin, 16, and Mahmoud, 12, in the October 7 rocket attack.

“We were completely vulnerable that day. After the first rocket fell right outside the village and didn’t harm anyone, we went about our daily business,” the 50-year-old father said against a backdrop of rocky hills dotted with sheep and wild gazelles. An olive grove stands nearby.

Mr. Al-Quran, who works as a teacher and educator at a local school, said that at one point 16 people were sitting in the family guesthouse where the next rocket struck directly. Most had dispersed just a few minutes before the rocket hit.

“When rockets are fired, people in big cities like Ashkelon and Beer Sheva know what to do because they’ve experienced thousands of rocket attacks. Out here in open areas, in the countryside, we were completely caught off guard,” Mr. Al-Quran said. 

Most of the Negev’s Bedouin tribes are descendants of traditional nomadic Arab communities from Hejaz, a region in the north of the Arabian peninsula, and have traditionally adhered to Islam. Following Israel’s establishment in 1948, the Bedouins have undergone an urbanization process, moving to semi-permanent housing from traditional tents. 

Israel has also established seven urban centers and two regional councils for Bedouin tribes. Today, the Bedouin population in the Negev stands at 300,000, but about 120,000 continue to live in encampments and unrecognized villages such as Alba’at, which are scattered across the desert.

Following the rocket attack on Alba’at, the Israel Home Front Command set up a green makeshift shelter in the village, in addition to a new concrete shelter that was purchased thanks to private donations from Muslim charities.

Yet the CEO of the STEP Forward association, which works to empower the Israeli Bedouin population, Lieutenant-Colonel Wahid Al-Huzail of the IDF, says thousands of more bomb shelters are needed for the Bedouin residents of the Negev. “October 7 created a new reality for the Bedouin community,” he told the Sun. “But this isn’t just about bomb shelters. We feel we are invisible in Israeli society and now is the opportunity to change our reality. But it’s our responsibility and not just the state’s to invest in our youth so they can become responsible citizens. Schools are key to this change. And bomb shelters will provide the safety needed during times of war.”

In the meantime, Ibrahim Al-Quran says he paid the heaviest price for this conflict. “My kids, Malek and Jawad, were great students. They loved to help people and enjoyed traveling. We visited five different countries together. They were my light,” he said while holding turquoise prayer beads.

“We had big plans for the future. But God had different plans,” he said. “I feel my life hasn’t returned to normal and probably never will.”