Negev toddler killed in apparent tractor accident
3-year-old girl from southern Bedouin village pronounced dead upon arrival at Beersheba's Soroka Medical Center
A three-year-old girl was killed in an apparent tractor accident in a Negev-area Bedouin village Tuesday evening.
Family members rushed the toddler to the Nevatim Junction on Route 31, where they were met by paramedics who transferred her to a hospital in the nearby city of Beersheba.
Doctors at the city’s Soroka Medical Center pronounced the girl dead shortly after arriving.
Around 230,000 Bedouin live in Israel’s south, including 90,000 in sprawling encampments in “unrecognized areas,” according to official data.
The government considers the unplanned villages to be illegal, having been built without permit or regulation. Bedouin insist they suffer from state neglect as they try to maintain their traditional nomadic and conservative lifestyle.