Rahat

The story

Rahat (Arabic: رهط) is a Bedouin city in the northern Negev, north of Beersheba. It was founded in 1972 on the lands of the al-Huzayil tribe, within the government plan for the establishment of permanent localities for the Bedouin population in the Negev, and the cornerstone was laid on 25 May 1972. At its beginning it was administered on behalf of the Bnei Shimon Regional Council; in 1980 it received a separate administration, in 1989 it was declared a local council, and in 1994 it received the status of a city — the first among the Bedouin localities in the Negev. According to the estimate of the Central Bureau of Statistics for the middle of 2026, 81,829 residents live in it, and it is the twenty-fifth largest locality in Israel; about 99.7 percent of them are Muslim Arabs. At the northwestern entrance to the city, east of Kibbutz Shoval, stands the house of Sheikh Salman al-Huzayil, which was built in 1924 on the lands of that same tribe on which the city arose. In December 2022 the Bedouin market reopened in Rahat, which had operated in Beersheba from 1905 and was closed by a decision of the Beersheba municipality in February 2017.

• Bedouin