Palestinian children play in the Bedouin village of Umm Al-Nasser in northern Gaza. (Wesam Saleh, Maan Images)

The bulldozers came for Hamid Salim Hassan's house just after dawn. Before the demolition began, the Bedouin family scrambled to gather what they could: a fridge, a pile of carpets, some plastic chairs, a canister of cooking gas and a metal bed frame.

Now, with their house a wreck of smashed concrete and broken plastic pipes, Mr Hassan and his family are living in a canvas tent on a neighbour's land. Their possessions are piled outside, along with boxes of supplies, including washing-up liquid, toothpaste, corned beef, wheat flour and tomato paste, provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

His tent is small but it affords Mr Hassan a compelling view of the future. Stretched out before him are the hilltops of the West Bank where he and his family, all Bedouin shepherds who fled Israel in 1948, used to live and graze their sheep. Standing there now is Ma'ale Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements which is illegal under international law. Snaking up the hillside towards his tent is the West Bank barrier, also ruled unlawful in advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice. When complete, the steel and barbed wire barrier, which here will be 50m wide and include a ditch and patrol roads, will surround Ma'ale Adumim, attaching it to a greater Jerusalem.

For the 3,000 Bedouin living here, most from the Jahalin tribe, this presents an imminent crisis. "They came and destroyed my house to protect their wall," said Mr Hassan, 62. "They really don't have enough land already that they had to come and destroy my house? We've lost everything."

Earlier this month the Israeli military destroyed seven huts and tents belonging to Bedouin living near a settlement in Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Another group of Bedouin living further east in the Jordan Valley have been given two months to leave their homes near an Israeli military base and a Jewish settlement.

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In each case the Israeli authorities argue the homes have been built without permits, but Palestinians say they are notoriously hard to obtain.

Bedouin culture has been eroded as a result. Refugees from the Negev desert in Israel who crossed after 1948, their grazing land has been squeezed by the growth of Palestinian towns, the rapid emergence of large Jewish settlements and lately the vast concrete and steel barrier. Most Bedouin live on land that under the Oslo accords was supposed to be unpopulated farmland where Israel has civilian and military control. Today most live in primitive shacks, many no longer keep animal herds and they have little in the way of formal land ownership documents. They have become one of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities.

Open and free

Mr Hassan, 62, was born in Be'er Sheva, in what is now Israel. His family crossed during the 1948-9 war and moved to land near Azariya, the biblical town of Bethany, near Jerusalem. For years they continued their semi-nomadic existence, grazing their large flock of sheep on the hillside. In 1975 a group of 23 Jewish families founded the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, which has grown into a town of 35,000 people. Mr Hassan and other Bedouin were forced off the land. Most set up shacks on another hilltop. Ten years ago Mr Hassan found the money to buy a plot of land and built a house, giving up his Bedouin existence. "Life changes," he said. "We had no other choice." His seven children, including his daughters, went to school and college, integrating into a new urban life.

Other Bedouin have also changed and work as construction labourers, many even employed in Ma'ale Adumim, building the settlement that has taken the land they once lived on.

"In the past people envied our lifestyle. The land was open and free. There were sheep and we were rich," said his brother Saeed Hassan Salim, 50. "The occupation put us out of business. The Bedouin life is slipping away." He now lives in a small shack that stands directly in the path of the barrier and is almost certain to be demolished soon.

To read the full article please visit The Guardian's website.