The reality
Jim Casrroll
Wadi al-Na'am is an unrecognized village in the Negev Desert in Southern Israel. The nearest official settlement is Beersheba. The village is home to about 5,000 Bedouin who live mainly in tents and tin shacks less than 500 metres away from a toxic waste dump, largely surrounded by the Ramat Hovav industrial zone and military areas including anIsrael Defense Forces live-fire range. Because the village is unrecognized, it is ineligible for basic services and subject to periodic house demolitions, even though the inhabitants hold Israeli citizenship.[1][2]

State treatment of unrecognized villages
Israeli government uses different means in order to attract the Bedouin into the planned settlements. It offers land lots at very attractive prices on the one hand,[55] and as an extreme measure - following the court order and all the legal procedure - demolishes houses built illegally on state lands and in rare cases even sprays toxic pesticides onto crops[56]planted in unappropriate places. This is done in order to implement law and order in the Negev, as well as to build new settlements there, both for Jews and for the Bedouin, and improve life conditions of the Bedouin by moving them to townships with a developed infrastructure.

Uprooting Weeds, by Devorah Brous
On Thursday, March 11th, 2004, Bedouin fields were sprayed with Monsanto's toxic Roundup for the seventh time in 2 years as the Israel Lands Authority sent a fleet of planes to 'redeem' land near Mitzpe Ramon, in Abde and in Qatamat, unrecognized villages in the Southern Negev. In such cases, the State has rendered Bedouin cultivation of unused desert expanse, illegal. Twice in February, fruit trees (olives and dates) were uprooted from Bedouin villages, each time some 50 trees. Below please find an article analyzing this policy of uprooting, and destroying food crops. Bustan is collecting any information on crop-spraying operations around the world as a tactic to gain state control over lands.

Jewish settlers spray toxic substance, kill herd of sheep
By Palestinian Information Center
August 13, 2012
AL-KHALIL– Jewish settlers sprayed toxic substance in Palestinian grazing fields near the town of Yatta, southern al-Khalil, causing the death of a herd of sheep.
The coordinator of the popular committees against the wall and settlement in Yatta, Ratib Al-Jabour, asserted that the herd of sheep, which belonged to Jihad Noajah, had died after grazing in wild herbs, which were sprayed with toxic substances by settlers from Susiya settlement to the southeast of Yatta.
Meanwhile, the head of Wadi al-Maleh village council, Aref Daraghmeh, stated that the Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) have ordered Palestinian Bedouins in Wadi al-Maleh in the Jordan Valley to pay excessive fines of up to 15 thousand shekels to retrieve their cattle confiscated a few days ago.
He added that the residents lost numbers of their cows which died during the confiscation raid while others were still held by the IOA even after paying the fines.

The story of the Bedouin tribesmen in the unrecognized village of wadi al-Na'am southern Israel desert.
Wadi al-Na'am is an unrecognized Bedouin village located in the Negev Desert in Southern Israel. The village is home to about 8,000 Bedouins. Since the Bedouins never registered their holdings on paper, their villages were considered illegal and termed "unrecognized". The villagers are deprived of basic services such as electricity, running water, sewage system and medical services. As the villagers cannot build homes legally, the Israeli government uses demolition orders against their homes.
Israel's hazardous industrial park and waste disposal facility, Ramat Hovav, is only 1 km away from Wadi al-Na'am. Ramat Hovav currently encompasses 14 hazardous agro and petro-chemical factories and a toxic waste incinerator. The village is also encircled by a large facility of the national electric company as well as military areas including live-fire range.
An epidemiological survey, which was released by the Israeli Ministry of Health in 2004, found higher rates of prenatal deaths, respiratory problems and birth defects among the Bedouins in the Negev. Wadi el Na'am inhabitants have been suffering from high rates of cancer, asthma and miscarriages.

Respiratory morbidity in hospitalized Bedouins residing near an industrial park.
Kordysh E, Karakis I, Belmaker I, Vardi H, Bolotin A, Sarov B.
Source
Department of Epidemiology and Health Systems Evaluation, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
Abstract
The residents' concern about exposure to a chemical industrial park (IP), which includes the national toxic industrial waste site, prompted the authors to initiate this ecological study on the association between residing near the IP and being hospitalized for respiratory ailments in the local Bedouin population. The population was stratified by sex, age, and locality type (permanent settlements and traditional tribal settlements). The distance and wind direction from the IP were used as exposure indicators. Hospitalization data were obtained from the regional medical center. Increased hospitalization rates for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and all respiratory diseases were found to be associated with residential proximity to the IP. Attributable risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was 34.2% in male members of the traditional tribal settlements and 49.3% in female members of the permanent settlements.