Kuseife
Kuseife or Kseifa is a Bedouin town organized as a local council in the Southern District of Israel. Kuseife was founded in 1982 as part of a government project to plan and build towns for Negev Bedouins. In 1996 it was declared a local council, and in it had a population of.
History
British Mandate
The Survey of Western Palestine noted Khurbet Kuseifeh as “a small ruin with foundations and heaps of stones.”Israel
The area appears as Kuseife in the military administration documents starting from the 1950s.After the peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel, the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt and all the IDF bases stationed there were removed to the Israeli territory, some of them to the Negev desert. One of them was a Nevatim Airbase. A township adjacent to the base appeared at the same time. Kuseifa was one of seven townships planned and built for Bedouins in order to sedentarize and urbanize by offering better life conditions, proper infrastructure and high quality public services in sanitation, health and education, and municipal services. The other towns founded alongside were Hura, Lakiya, Ar'arat an-Naqab, Shaqib al-Salam, Tel as-Sabi and Rahat. Initially, development of Kuseifa was strained by land claims of Bedouins that were later resolved.
Population
Members of several Bedouin family clans reside in Kuseife: Abu Ajaj, Elamor, el-Zabarka, el-Nasasra, the biggest of them Abu-Rabia. Other families are: Azbarga, El-Dada, Abu Juda and Abu Anam. A part of el-Nasasra and Elamor clans lives outside Kuseife in a close proximity to the Nevatim Airbase.According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the population of Kuseife was 17,400 in December 2010. Its annual growth rate is 3.6%. Kuseife's jurisdiction is 13,692 dunams. Israeli Statistics classified the town as religious to very religious.
Population of Kuseife by year
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PlotArea = left:70 right:40 top:20 bottom:20
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
Colors =
id:gray1 value:gray
DateFormat = yyyy
Period = from:0 till:24000
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:2000 start:0 gridcolor:gray1
PlotData =
bar:1995 color:gray1 width:1
from:0 till:4300 width:15 text:"4300 est." textcolor:red fontsize:8px
bar:2000 color:gray1 width:1
bar:2005 color:gray1 width:1
from:0 till:9854 width:15 text:9854 textcolor:red fontsize:8px
bar:2010 color:gray1 width:1
from:0 till:17288 width:15 text:17288 textcolor:red fontsize:8px
bar:2015 color:gray1 width:1
from:0 till:19069 width:15 text:19069 textcolor:red fontsize:8px
bar:2020 color:gray1 width:1
from:0 till:22485 width:15 text:22485 textcolor:red fontsize:8px
bar:2025 color:gray1 width:1
from:0 till:22435 width:15 text:"22435 est." textcolor:red fontsize:8px
Economy and services
According to the CBS data for December 2009, the local council of Kuseife is ranked lowest in its socio-economic ranking with an average income NIS 4,331 to the national average of NIS 7,070. Only 43.4% of grade twelve students are eligible to graduate from high school.Industrial parks are in the area include Hura and Dimona. The closest industrial zone to Kuseife is situated in Arad. Other job opportunities are: several chemical plants near the Dead Sea like the Dead Sea Works, different high-tech companies and textile shops. Some Bedouins work in the service industry.
There are several schools in the township and a community center. Medical clinics in Kuseife include Leumit, Clalit, Maccabi and several Tipat Halav perinatal centers.
In May 2017, a railway extension from Beersheba to Arad with a station at Kuseife was approved. The line would connect to the existing Beersheba-Dimona rail line at the proposed new station at Nevatim.