The design of the townships also prevents the continuation of traditional social life, which “disrupt[s] the social fabric and hierarchies of Bedouin communities.”343 The townships were partially built on land confiscated from various Bedouin communities, creating internal communal conflicts.344 It is not surprising, therefore, that one Bedouin man described the townships as “the antithesis of Bedouin being."345 “There were around 90,000 to 120,000 Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab before 1948. During the war, 90 percent of these Bedouins were forcibly displaced, most of them to the Gaza Strip and Jordan. Those who managed to remain, between 12,000 and 20,000, were concentrated in one area that makes only for 10 percent of the whole Naqab desert. These Israeli policies to transfer Palestinian Bedouins still exist today, and did not just end in 1948. One common policy is the transfer of Bedouins from one community to another which is not theirs, in an attempt to break the connection between the Bedouins and their land. The Bedouins currently living in the villages Umm al-Hiran and Wadi al-Na'am [in the Naqab] were forcibly transferred from their original villages to those villages. Now, the Israeli courts say that these villages are not theirs and so they have to leave them [because they are there illegally]. This Israeli mechanism of transferring, moving and mixing is mainly to break the connections the Palestinian Bedouins have to the land. In my opinion, Bedouins have the strongest kind of relationship with the land, it is not only a physical connection, is it a spiritual connection with the land. Another Israeli policy is forced gentrification which affects all aspects of Bedouin life; economic, cultural, or social. They concentrate the Bedouin population in a small territory in order to evacuate Palestinians from their land to build more colonies. Of course Palestinians in the Naqab are a strategic threat to Israel, and thus, Israel uses this policy to put Bedouins in densely populated areas which will lead to several consequences on their social lives, and of course the tribal entity which was the regulator of Bedouins lives, and was the organizing body for people's lives is now declining. For example, Bedouin economic life depended on farming, especially in the Western part of the Naqab which was famous for wheat production. Now, due to this Israeli policy Bedouin agricultural life is completely destroyed. Moreover, there are several Israeli laws that limit ranching which is also one of the most important elements in Bedouin economic life. 343 Ibid. 344 HRW, Off the Map – Land and Housing Rights Violations in Israel’s Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, 30 March 2008. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/03/30/map/land-and-housing-rightsviolations-israels-unrecognized-bedouin-villages 345 Harriet Sherwood, Bedouin’s plight: ‘We want to maintain our traditions. But it’s a dream here’, 3 November 2011. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/03/bedouin-plighttraditions-threat-israel 93