Tragedy in Bedouin City: Three Siblings Die in Fire

Three children from the Bedouin Abu Jaffer family, Taufik, 1, Huda, 3, and Eden, 4, were evacuated in critical condition by MDA staff to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva Saturday, where they were pronounced dead. The three children were fatally injured from smoke inhalation in their home in the Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev.

The children's grandmother is the cousin of Amin Shaaban, a taxi driver from whose body was found two days ago near the Tel Aviv beach, close to where an Israeli Arab gunman sprayed Dizengoff Street with bullets, killing two and injuring seven.

A large firefighting force fought to extinguish the fire, and a large police force was sent to the scene. The father of three, Omar Abu Jafar, was questioned, and at the end of the investigation police reported that the children slept in a room with a heater that had been left on, and there is no suspicion of foul play.

Rahat is a predominantly Bedouin city in the Negev with a population of some 60,000. It is the largest Bedouin settlement in the world, and the only one in Israel to have a city status.