Abu Qrenat

Abu Qrenat lies in the eastern Negev along Route 25, between Hura to the west and Arad to the east. Geographic literature places it within a belt extending between the Arad Valley and the settlement itself.[1][3] Globes describes it as being between Beersheba and Dimona.[6]

The village is administratively part of the Neve Midbar Regional Council, a designation recorded in the 2022 locality file and confirmed by a 2026 report listing Abu Qrenat among the council's constituent localities.[2][7]

The Abu Qrenat tribal grouping has a documented presence in the eastern Negev going back at least to the period of Israeli military governance. An academic chapter from the Hebrew-language volume Bedouin of the Negev: Tribalism, Politics and Criticism, published by the Herzl Institute for the Study of Zionism at the University of Haifa, places Abu Qrenat within the T'lam tribal confederation alongside the Abu Rabia and Abu Juweid groups.[3] It identifies Sheikh Abu Qrenat as a recognized leader and one of the large traders in livestock from Jordan during that era.[3] The chapter recounts that when Saadon sought to establish a slaughterhouse on Sheikh Abu Qrenat's land, the request was denied by the governor, who redirected Saadon to establish it at Abu Rabia's land instead.[3]

By 2005, Abu Qrenat — listed as Abu Krinat — was among eleven localities incorporated into the Abu Basma Regional Council, established that year to administer unrecognized and new Bedouin villages.[8] The government allocated NIS 470 million for development projects across the council, with approximately 25,000 Bedouin living in the newly recognized settlements, though neither figure was specific to Abu Qrenat alone.[8] A 2010 report listed Abu Qrenat among nine Negev localities the state had recognized, placing it in the context of the Goldberg Committee's recommendation to recognize roughly 20 of 46 Bedouin localities and concentrate them within defined boundaries to be agreed upon with residents.[9]

Israel's 2019 response to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights described Abu Qrenat as one of four recently recognized Bedouin villages. It reported that a local social-service department opened there on September 15, 2019, staffed by social workers four days a week and serving both village residents and nearby communities, with the ministry fully financing the service.[10]

The village's name appears in several transliterations. Variants include Abu Grainat and Abu Krinat,[11][8] as well as Abu Qureinat and Abu Karinat in official records.[2][4]

Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics 2022 locality file lists Abu Qureinat locality, code 1342, with a population of 2,222, including 2 classified as Jews and others and 2,220 as Arabs. The file separately lists Abu Qureinat tribe, code 968, as having no municipal status and provides no separate population figure for that record.[2]

An industrial zone covering approximately 150 dunams was developed at Abu Qrenat as part of a broader government program for Bedouin localities in the Negev.[5] In 2021, Mako reported that initial development work had been completed and marketing of the zone had begun, with the expectation that it would provide employment for roughly 500 people.[5]

In April 2024, vehicle-leasing company Blue Sky won all four industrial plots offered in a public tender at the site, totaling 5,403 square meters, for NIS 2,710,045 including development costs.[6] Automotive-industry experts cited in the report suggested the company intended to establish an operations and vehicle-refurbishment center at the location.[6]

In 2023, students from Abu Qrenat A Middle School participated in "The Desert Around Me," an environmental-education initiative involving approximately 200 middle-school students from six schools.[12] Student Anas Abu Ashiba said: "Making the video about preserving the desert landscape was a fascinating experience for me."[12]

Documented civic and educational facilities in Abu Qrenat include a 15-classroom special-education elementary school, a 14-classroom ORT high school, the 18-classroom Al-Majd elementary school, and four two-classroom kindergartens. Public facilities include a multipurpose building with a mother-and-child clinic, a separate 250-square-meter multipurpose building, and a sports court.[4]

Al-Majd School opened with 150 students, spanning pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, and had grown to serve 370 students six years later.[1] In 2018, Hasan al-Ghanami returned to Abu Qrenat after eleven years at the Israel Electric Corporation, taking on the role of principal of the newly established school at the community's request.[1]

The school teaches in Arabic and incorporates Hebrew into its activities. Al-Ghanami described its purpose as helping students integrate and succeed in Israeli society.[1]

A September 2026 report identified concerns at Abu Qrenat A School and Eshkol A kindergartens. Parents' committee chair Mohammed Abu Qrenat alleged serious safety deficiencies and said that little had changed following an August safety inspection, apart from the installation of seven classroom doors at the school.[13]

In 2019, members of the Abu Qrenat family petitioned against the Ramat Beka defense-industrial-zone plan, a project covering roughly 52 square kilometers approximately 12.5 kilometers south of Beersheba, east of Route 40 and opposite Neot Hovav.[14] The family argued that the plan imposed building and development restrictions on 455 dunams they claimed as their land, prevented the legal regularization of their residential neighborhood, threatened their home, and would harm their agricultural livelihood.[14]

At the time of the petition, about 60 dunams were reported as being used for housing by 76 people in 15 households, 90 dunams were under contract for a photovoltaic field, and additional land was used for agriculture.[14] The Ramat Beka plan was intended to include an Elbit plant for Israel Military Industries Systems and a separate area for private defense factories.[14] Following the family's petition, a court ordered the relevant district committee to reconsider the plan, with the presiding judge urging the state to seek an agreed solution with residents rather than resorting to forced eviction.[14]

A 2019 Calcalist report described a separate proposal by the Bedouin-settlement authority to relocate approximately 350 residents from the eastern portion of the plan's area to an expansion of Abu Qrenat, offering each relocating family a plot for a new home plus NIS 250,000 in compensation.[15] The report said residents had not been permitted to respond before the committee accepted the proposed solutions.[15] These were reported proposals and contested claims, not an account of completed relocations or adjudicated findings.