Bedouin of the Negev Desert

Khader Abu al-Kian (right) and his son have already seen their lives change.

They walk among the rubble of their family's home, which was demolished by Israeli authorities in Atir, a dusty village that has never existed on any official map.

Israel has already invested around $5.6 billion (3.6 billion pounds) to construct military bases in the Negev and will build 10 new communities there. The Bedouins will have to make way, a plan they say shows that Arabs are second-class citizens in Israel and is a betrayal given their past efforts to help build up the state.

"For 41 years I worked on this land, in the fresh air, for the Ministry of Agriculture and the Jewish National Fund, planting trees and putting out forest fires," said Abu al-Kian.

"I have citizenship, but they still destroyed my house. Now I have only the shirt on my back. It's like they're saying to me, 'Just leave and go to hell'," he said.

Some 200,000 Bedouins live in the southern desert, half in government-built townships and half in 42 ramshackle "unrecognised" villages lacking basic services, like this one where a young Bedouin boy is pictured walking past a set of tents.

A draft law, which will likely come to a final vote after parliament returns from recess in October, will move some 40,000 Bedouins from the villages into the seven townships, although some villages will stay.

The "Prawer Plan" will compensate many Bedouin with a combination of land and cash and bring them into "the 21st century" by significantly improving their standard of living, according to a government-sponsored report on the draft.

The Israeli position is that developing the region provides an opportunity to address the needs of a long neglected segment of the population.

Over two-thirds of Negev Bedouin lived below the poverty line in 2007, over four times the rate of Jewish households, according to the National Insurance Institute.