When missile sirens sound in the northern Negev village of Abu Talool, Attia Alasam and his neighbors don’t head for the nearest bomb shelter.

Some hide in ditches or holes in the ground. Others climb under tractors and crouch beneath bridges. At best, some can manage to reach large cement pipes or other makeshift fortifications that fall well below Home Front Command standards.

“When you hear that alarm, and you have nowhere to go, and you have nothing to protect you, it’s very scary,” said Alasam, who heads the unofficial Regional Council for Unrecognized Bedouin Villages. “You have nothing to do, you have no protection — you have nothing.”

For the hundreds of thousands of Bedouin living in the northern Negev, and many of the millions of Arab citizens of Israel, such dangers remain a constant worry, in stark contrast to Jewish Israelis, most of whom have access to either protected rooms in their homes or public shelters within running distance.

According to a January report by the Negev Coexistence Forum’s research center, Nagabiyah, only around 35% of Bedouin have access to an in-home shelter. There are only six public shelters in Bedouin communities across the northern Negev, all but one of which are in the city of Rahat, leaving most Bedouin without any shelter.

In most major Bedouin towns, including Hura, Kuseife, Tel-Sheva, Ar’ara‑BaNegev, Segev Shalom, and Lakiya, there are no shelters at all, according to Nagabiyah, which calculated a rate of one public shelter for every 53,825 Bedouin.

That contrasts sharply with the situation for Jews in neighboring towns, like the city of Ofakim, which has 150 public shelters for its roughly 41,000 residents, or about one public shelter per 273 residents, and Meitar’s one shelter per about 369 residents, per Nagabiyah’s analysis of government mapping data.

The stark disparities in protection, which extend across the Arab community but are most acute among the Bedouin, have long been an issue, and activists say little is being done to narrow the gap, despite successive government and watchdog reports warning for years about major imbalances in civilian protection, in particular since Israel’s 12-day conflict with Iran last June.

The problem Arab citizens face has taken on new urgency this month amid the ongoing war with Iran, which has seen hundreds of ballistic missiles fired by Iran, along with rocket fire from the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, much of it targeting northern Israel, where most Arabs live.

To many, the lack of equality in shelters goes hand in hand with the widespread neglect experienced by Arab communities, including poor access to public services and a crime wave they say the government has allowed to fester.

“These large gaps reflect neglect and deprivation in many areas. It’s a bit like the story of violence,” said Amnon Beeri-Sulitzeanu, co-CEO of the Abraham Initiatives NGO, referring to the rime epidemic sweeping Arab society.

“It’s not just about shelters. The economic condition of Arab municipalities is bad. It’s cumulative and just another reflection of the situation facing Arabs throughout the country, at all levels of society,” he added.

Researchers say the gap stems largely from state planning and policy decisions, including limited building permits in Bedouin communities and the state’s refusal to formally recognize dozens of villages in the Negev.

Without approved planning schemes, residents often cannot legally build permanent homes with reinforced safe rooms, which are required in newer construction across Israel.

The mandate that all new construction include a safe room in each unit or a basement shelter, first enacted in the 1990s, shifted Israel’s safeguards away from public shelters. But in places where homes are forbidden from having shelters, the lack of public shelters can be a life-or-death issue.

The report estimated that in the 35 villages lacking state recognition, where about 100,000 Bedouin live, a staggering 92% of residents lack access to standard protected spaces.

Most homes in such villages are makeshift tin shanties or tents due to restrictions barring the construction of more permanent homes or buildings, including reinforced safe rooms or public bomb shelters. Most such hamlets lack emergency infrastructure, have few public services, and often no electricity or paved roads.

Because the villages are officially classified as uninhabited land, they may not be included in the Israel Defense Forces’ missile defense shield, exposing residents to even more danger.

When sirens sound, many take refuge in caves, beneath tractors, in holes dug in the ground, or in giant cement drainage cylinders, which are sometimes provided as makeshift shelters. Some also hide under bridges, though safety officials say doing so can be even more dangerous than being out in the open, as they can collapse or create wind tunnels that amplify blast effects.

Nine months ago, during the June war, Alasam told The Times of Israel that when missiles are headed toward Abu Talool, “We sit at home and watch the interceptions in the sky and pray.”

Nothing has changed since, he said Wednesday.

“We knocked on all the doors. We turned to every possible body, but unfortunately, nothing helped us,” he said. “So we sit at home, and we wait until the danger passes.”

The Home Front Command, which is responsible for putting public shelters in place, did not respond to a request for comment from The Times of Israel.

In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, it noted that planning approval rests with local planning authorities, and cities are typically responsible for maintaining public shelters.

“As per the Civil Defense Law, public shelter construction is the responsibility of local authorities, whereas personal protection is an individual responsibility,” Home Front Command said in a statement responding to a request for comment on disparities in shelter access between Arab and Jewish communities in Israel.

It added, “The Home Front Command also takes measures to provide individual protection and to renovate public shelters, based on guidance from the political echelon and government decisions.”

According to a letter from the Home Front Command responding to an inquiry by the NGO Israel Religious Action Center, the state installed 1,500 portable shelters — basic concrete structures without doors or ventilation — from October 7, 2023, to August 2025. The Home Front Command itself has deemed these structures below safety standards.

Of those, the Home Front Command said that about 550 were installed in Arab and Druze communities in the North of the country.

According to a January report by State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman, the state installed 160 portable shelters in Bedouin communities in the Negev over the past year, along with 74 Hesco barriers, collapsible, sand-bag-like walls that provide minimal protection.

Alasam estimates that his community has around twenty portable shelters, each able to accommodate about 10 people – far short of what is needed for the village’s roughly 7,000 residents.

“They may help against shrapnel and give people a small sense of comfort, but if there’s a direct hit, clearly it will be destroyed,” he said.

Many of those portable shelters have been donated by NGOs, who are still fundraising and installing the shelters amid the current war.

On Tuesday, the peace organization Standing Together began installing 10 portable shelters in the Bedouin villages of Abu Tarash and Bir al Hammam, after raising over NIS 500,000 ($162,000) for the cause.

However, the conditions of villages recognized by the state are often indistinguishable from those that aren’t. Abu Talool, for example, was officially recognized by the state two decades ago, yet remains severely lacking in protection.

“The recognized Bedouin localities in the Negev — which are part of Israel’s municipal and legal system — remain almost completely without basic public protection infrastructure,” according to the Nagabiyah report.

“The lack of protective infrastructure is not due to a lack of awareness among residents,” the report states, pointing instead to planning restrictions, limited construction approvals, and longstanding policy gaps that have prevented the development of adequate shelters.

“In strong, wealthy municipalities, there are excellent shelters. In weak municipalities, they’re in disrepair. But then the government says ‘it’s nothing to do with us,'” he says.

“Of course, there is discrimination and negligence here, but this is also just an incompetent government, for whom this issue isn’t a priority,” adds Beeri-Sulitzeanu.

According to Alasam, some residents of Abu Talool and other villages have tried to build protective rooms for themselves, only to see authorities demolish the structures for lacking permits. Requests for permits have fallen on deaf ears, he alleged.

“People don’t even try anymore,” he said. “The state enables, and the state destroys.”

The situation is not much better for Arab communities elsewhere in Israel. According to official data, only 37 of Israel’s 11,776 public shelters are located in Arab towns. Eight of those 37 are non-operational, according to the Abraham Initiatives.

In 2018, the last time the issue was examined in depth, a State Comptroller’s report found that 46% of citizens in Arab society lacked standard protection, compared to 26% of the general population. A report from the ombudsman in January of this year put the number of those lacking shelter nationwide at roughly 33% of the population, suggesting that the situation in Arab communities may have worsened.

The issue extends to East Jerusalem, where is only one public bomb shelter for hundreds of thousands of residents, according to Bimkom-Planners for Planning Rights, a group advocating for equitable built environments in Israel.

“This is an issue of equity,” said Bimkom’s Dafna Saporta. “We’re talking about the Arab population. They don’t have equality, and they don’t have justice in Israel. The state is taking care of the Jewish population but neglecting the Arabs. It’s not new. It’s a political decision.”

In a survey for the Israel Democracy Institute published this week, around half of Arab respondents in the north said they had a safe room, and another 18% said they had a public shelter nearby. Among Jewish respondents from the same area, the numbers were 69% and 27% respectively.

In the south, 100% of Arab respondents said they had no access to any safe room or shelter, compared with 5.6% of Jewish respondents.

According to Beeri-Sulitzeanu, in the eight years since the 2018 audit, no more public shelters have been built for the Arab community.

“There have been more schools with shelters built, but nothing significant by any standard,” he said.

In a report released this week, the Knesset Research Center stated that about 466,000 students, comprising roughly one-quarter of the pupils nationwide, lack adequate protection against rockets and missiles.

This is significantly worse in Bedouin localities, where 780 shelters protect about 117,000 students, leaving about 40% of students and staff protected.

Roughly 400 more shelters would be required to meet minimum Home Front Command protection standards. The problem is compounded by a shortage of about 1,000 classrooms, forcing many schools to use shelters as classrooms or storage rooms, meaning they may not be available in an emergency.

The Israel Religious Action Center, the Council for Unrecognized Villages, and other groups petitioned the High Court of Justice in August 2024 demanding protection for Arab communities, particularly the Bedouin community.

However, the High Court ruled that it could not compel the state to provide protection, ruling that it was up to local municipalities and individuals.

“The responsibility is primarily on local municipalities whose job it is to make sure that buildings that have protection are approved, and to not approve buildings that don’t have protection,” Beeri-Sulitzeanu said.

However, he said the state still bears responsibility, blaming it for refusing to recognize Bedouin villages, making it impossible for them to legally build shelters.

“The national government is not exempt from responsibility,” Beeri-Sulitzeanu said. “If local government isn’t doing its job, national government must intervene and fill its place.”

He also noted that the government had cut funding for Arab municipalities making it more difficult to pay for shelters to be built.

In December, NIS 220 million ($68.5 million) was cut from a program meant to boost Arab economic development and instead allocated to the police to combat “severe nationalistic crime” in the Arab community, which drew condemnation from Arab leaders.

Social Equality Minister May Golan, who spearheaded the move, also closed a dedicated situation room established after October 7 to coordinate emergency preparedness and information in Arab society in May 2024, despite strong opposition from Arab leadership.

According to the January State Comptroller report, which concluded that the lack of shelter facing the population was most dire among the Arab community, there is currently no government body handling the tasks previously managed by the situation room.

As a result of the extreme “deficiencies identified in government responses concerning the emergency needs of Arab society,” the report urged the Prime Minister’s Office and the Social Equality Ministry to “establish an overarching entity capable of mobilizing government ministries, local government agencies, and pertinent public bodies to address the gaps in civil preparedness for emergencies, thereby mitigating potential harm to civilians resulting from the ongoing conflict.”

The Social Equality Ministry did not respond to a request for comment and Golan declined to offer a response.

JTA contributed to this report.

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