After cutting school transport in the Bedouin village of Bir Hadaj, Israeli court orders education ministry to backtrack following Adalah’s legal action

The Be’er Sheva Administrative Court ordered the Israeli Ministry of Education to reinstate school bus transportation for children of the Bedouin village of Bir Haddaj in the Naqab (Negev), after the Ministry unilaterally cut off the service to their neighborhood, which had been provided for almost 20 years, before the beginning of the current school year. The court issued the decision in response to a petition filed by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, holding that cancelling the school transportation prevented the students from attending school regularly and therefore violated their right to education.

CLICK HERE to read the decision [in Hebrew]

Bir Haddaj is a recognized Bedouin village with over 5,000 residents. Like many such villages in the Naqab, it has been subjected to severe planning restrictions, with large parts of the community living in homes outside the official zoning area of the village defined by the state. These residents are denied access to basic services including roads, electricity, water, and waste collection—deliberate neglect that the state then uses to justify further deprivation, such as the denial of transportation for children to their schools.

The transport cut affected approximately 50 children, aged 3-18, even though many of them live more than two kilometers from their schools—exceeding the Ministry’s own threshold for eligibility. During the proceedings, the Ministry revealed that an additional 2,500 children in other Bedouin villages—facing similar unsafe conditions as Bir Hadaj—do not receive public transportation, with the state justifying this by citing that they live under two kilometers from their schools.

For more than two decades, school transportation was provided to children in Bir Haddaj, including those living outside the officially recognized village’s boundaries. The abrupt suspension at the start of the current school year came without prior notice or any formal explanation from the Ministry.

Adalah Attorney Salam Irsheid filed the petition on 23 December 2024, demanding the immediate resumption of school transportation for the children, many of whom were unable to attend school since the start of the school year. While the Ministry argued that students live less than 2km from the schools, and thus aren’t eligible for state funded transportation, Adalah emphasized that the Ministry had ignored several basic factors: the absence of paved roads, sidewalks, or crossings; dangerous terrain; stray dogs; and extreme weather. These conditions made walking to school unsafe—and, for many children, simply impossible. 

Court hearings were held on the case on 9 January and 7 April 2025, during which Adalah submitted evidence confirming that many students lived beyond the two-kilometer threshold, and that the walking routes posed serious safety hazards, which children could not navigate without adult supervision.

In its 21 May 2025 ruling, the court found that the Ministry had failed to issue a reasoned administrative decision before suspending the bus service and had not taken into account the children’s living conditions. It ordered the Ministry to reinstate the school buses from the beginning of the 2025–2026 school year and to pay 20,000 shekels in legal expenses (approximately US$ 5,634).

The court confirmed that distance alone cannot determine eligibility for school transportation in areas where the state has failed to provide safe and accessible infrastructure. This is especially relevant in Bedouin towns and villages in the Naqab, where the state denies services, then uses the resulting poor conditions as a pretext for further deprivation.

Adalah Attorney Salam Irsheid commented:

“The Ministry of Education’s decision to cut off school transportation is part of a broader policy of systemic discrimination against Bedouin communities, which includes deprivation, marginalization, and forced displacement. Children are being punished for living in areas the state refuses to plan or link to services. The judgment is important because it affirms that the state cannot rigidly apply technical requirements—such as distance—without considering actual conditions on the ground. It underscores the state’s obligation to substantively guarantee the right to education, especially where its own policies have engineered environments of danger and neglect.”