Following Adalah’s Petition State Commits to Create Roads to all Schools and Service Centers in the Arab Bedouin Unrecognized Villages in the Naqab
On 17 December 2008, the Attorney General's office (AG) responded to a petition submitted by Adalah to the Supreme Court of Israel demanding the construction of a safe access road to the primary school and service center in the unrecognized Arab Bedouin village of al-Sayyid in the Naqab (Negev).
The AG stated that following the filing of the petition, he held a meeting on 9 December 2008 with representatives from various ministries and the Abu Basma Regional Council (ABRC). At the meeting, it was decided that a road will be paved to the school and the service center in al-Sayyid, and that this work would be undertaken by the ABRC, within whose jurisdiction the village lies. The AG ordered the ABRC and the Ministry of Transport to prepare the necessary plans for the construction of the road within two months. He also ordered that the Prime Minister’s Office convene an emergency meeting with representatives from the Ministries of Finance, Transportation and Education, the ABRC and the Head of the Bedouin Development Authority (BDA) to arrange for the necessary budgetary allocations.
The response further stated that work would be conducted on constructing roads to all schools and service centers in the unrecognized villages. Another decision was taken compelling the Ministry of Finance to hold a meeting by 15 January 2009 at which the ministries should examine the construction of roads and put in place a list of priorities for carrying out this work. A further decision held that a representative from the Prime Minister’s Office will holding a meeting by 15 February 2009 to identify and agree upon sources of funds.
Adalah Attorney Morad El-Sana filed the petition on 20 November 2008 on behalf of the parents’ committee at the village’s elementary school, the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education in Israel, the Association of Forty, the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Arab Villages in the Naqab, and Adalah.
In the petition, Adalah argued that the existing access road to the school in al-Sayyid poses a danger to the pupils and teachers who use it on daily basis. The petition emphasized that as many as four pupils have been killed on the road to date because of its appalling safety conditions. The most recent fatality occurred on 5 March 2008 when a pupil, Abd Al-Naim Al-Sayyid, was killed instantly when hit by a bus. The boy had been forced to walk on mounds of dirt by the side of the road because of pools of stagnant water that had gathered along the road. He then slipped onto the road where he was run over. The deceased boy’s father, Mr. Naim Al-Sayyid, is the first petitioner listed in the petition.
H.C. 9817/08, Naim Al-Sayyid, et al. v. Ministry of Education, et al. (case pending)
