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Israel's deadliest roads

Despite well-documented fatalities on roads in the Negev, successive Israeli governments have turned a blind eye, choosing instead to allocate funds to build and expand settlement infrastructure.
Bedouins of the Jahalin tribe watch television at their encampment, al-Khan al-Ahmar, in the Judean desert close to the road between Jericho and Jerusalem June 16, 2012. Bedouin tents and wandering goats dot the barren hills on the drive from Jerusalem down to the Dead Sea. But the Bedouin tradition is slowly dying out as Israel clears the camps to make way for expanding Jewish urban settlements. Picture taken June 16, 2012. To match Feature PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL/BEDOUIN .REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (WEST BANK -

The Feb. 3 road accident that claimed the lives of eight women from Hura, a southern Bedouin community, and left more than 30 people injured, has tragically drawn attention to a well-known fact: To wit, Israel's Bedouin population suffers from serious neglect of its infrastructure. This neglect has likely taken many lives to date.

In this recent accident, a trailer carrying a tractor ripped the side of a bus with female worshipers en route from Jerusalem. They were part of the al-Buraq Procession, organized by the Islamic Movement to bring worshipers to the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) in remembrance of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey. The women were killed just a few kilometers from home on Route 31, aka the "Bloody Road." Hura declared a day of mourning.

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