Abdelkarim Hasan, a 48-year-old driver and father of ten, received a phone call at 6am on October 7 that would change his life forever. A young client he had dropped off at a rave near Gaza the previous night was begging for Mr. Hasan to come back and pick them up. Despite his wife’s pleas for him to stay home, Mr. Hasan couldn’t bear to leave the partygoers stranded and vulnerable. Little did he know that this act of kindness would cost him his life.
Mr. Hasan, a burly man with a shaved head and thick eyebrows, had been enjoying himself at a wedding just hours before he received the call. Without hesitation, he jumped into his black minivan and raced to the junction near the kibbutz of Re’im. Sadly, his vehicle, now riddled with bullet holes, was later discovered by a reporter from The Telegraph. Mr. Hasan had been killed in his brave attempt to save the partygoer.
The attack on October 7, carried out by Hamas, claimed the lives of at least 24 Arab Israelis, mostly Bedouins, and took six Bedouins hostage. This tragic event highlighted the indiscriminate nature of Hamas’s assault on Israel. Shockingly, Hamas has shown no indication of releasing the Arab or Muslim captives in the near future.
The Bedouin community, a Muslim group native to the Negev desert, has found itself at the forefront of the Israel-Hamas conflict. After years of mutual suspicion, the Bedouins hope that the Israeli government will finally recognize and embrace them. However, the state still does not acknowledge them as an indigenous group. Furthermore, UN experts have called on Israeli authorities to halt the demolition of Bedouin settlements, which are being cleared to make way for Israeli settlements.
Wahid al-Hozzil, a retired IDF colonel and Bedouin resident of Rahat, a primarily Bedouin city in southern Israel, has been inundated with requests from tribesmen searching for their missing loved ones since the terror attack. He has mobilized local residents to gather information on the missing and deceased. According to his calculations, 11 Bedouin farm workers were killed in the Hamas raid, and seven more died in rocket attacks. On top of that, six people remain in captivity in Gaza.
When asked why Hamas would target fellow Arab Muslims, Colonel Hozzil, who served for 22 years, explained that Hamas does not differentiate between Arabs and Jews. To them, all Israeli citizens are the same. Bedouin IDF soldiers are often stationed in the Negev near Gaza, and Colonel Hozzil himself was involved in repelling a Hamas infiltration in 2008.
The Bedouin population has faced systemic discrimination since the establishment of Israel in 1948. Authorities have attempted to relocate the traditionally nomadic and semi-nomadic people to recognized towns, but many Bedouins have refused to leave their ancestral lands. Approximately 80,000 Bedouins still live in unrecognized villages in the desert, lacking basic amenities such as electricity and water. Israel’s state comptroller described the Bedouin population in the Negev as the poorest section of society, suffering from a lack of infrastructure and quality education.
The scale of the tragedy for the Bedouin community is unprecedented. Bedouins often have large families, and losing even one breadwinner has significant consequences. Among the victims of the attack was a man who had 35 children with three different wives. The community now has the responsibility of providing for all of them.
In the village of Kuseifa, where the Hasan family resides, a fleet of minivans sits parked on the side of a dusty road near two two-storey houses. Following Mr. Hasan’s death, his six brothers stopped working in the family minivan company. They have since helped Mr. Hasan’s two wives and ten children relocate to the village and have taken on the task of finishing the house he had only begun building.
The Hasan family gathered on the patio of their home, reminiscing about the frantic search for Mr. Hasan as his phone went dead hours after he left to rescue the partygoer. His brothers scoured the hospital and the site of the rave, begging the police to let them in. They eventually discovered his lifeless body inside his black Mercedes minivan, abandoned on the side of the road. The position of the car indicated that Mr. Hasan had attempted to escape but was killed in the process.
The Bedouin victims and hostages, unlike most other Israelis, are wary of publicity, fearing backlash from both Palestinians and Israelis. They feel caught between a rock and a hard place. Adam al-Zeadna, whose nephew was killed by Hamas, expressed this sentiment, careful not to criticize the government that continues to ignore dozens of Bedouin villages. His family is one of the few that still works the land in their native village of Al-Ziyad. Abdelrahman, his nephew, was a truck driver and a modern man who loved camping. He lost his life at Zikkim beach, just a few kilometers from Gaza, where he and his family often spent time.
The Bedouin community continues to endure the consequences of the Hamas attack. The loss of loved ones, the lack of recognition, and the ongoing discrimination weigh heavily on them. As the rest of Israel mourns the tragedy, the Bedouins hope for a brighter future, one where they are finally embraced and recognized by the state.
