Bedouin villages have been on the land since before the State of Israel was conceived. The Israeli government doesn’t recognise them and calls them illegal, and therefore they are not entitled to any infrastructure or services. The “illegal” villages lack even basic amenities such as running water and electricity. According to Yeela Raanan of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV), the elders have held receipts since the 1970s of payments made to Israel for plots of land in the town of Laquia. They lived on other people’s land in shacks and tents on the outskirts of the town, waiting for the land — which never came — to build homes for their families. Read more about Interview with Israeli activist Yeela Raanan