Palestinians of bedouin background form a small but important part of the Palestinian people, vital for their ability to live in arid areas and make them productive. Far from cities and deprived of schooling, they are considered 'backward' by village and city Palestinians, who are largely ignorant of the bedouin's culture and ecological knowledge. Some bedouin Gazans became land-rich under the British Mandate, but many others are refugees from the neighboring Naqab, often not registered with UNRWA, and without access to aid. Umm Muhammad is one of these. I find her with the help of a young man living in Gaza City whose family home is in Bureij. A bedouin man nicknamed Zirr'i ('the lark') is our guide, leading us along dusty paths to the hut where Umm Muhammad lives alone. She is very old - they say perhaps 100. She can't see too well, and when she searches for her burqa (an embroidered headband from which hangs a strip of coins covering her nose and mouth), she has to drag herself along the ground.

How can she manage on her own? She says she has a daughter living near who visits her daily. Grand daughters do her meagre shopping. Her two sons live abroad, one in Jordan, one in France. She hasn't seen the son who lives in France since he left home at age 16. She shows me a photo of a boy with bright, intelligent eyes. He doesn't write to her. Tears fall down her cheeks as she tells us this, and down mine too.

Almost the only part of Umm Muhammad's brief story that I understand - her bedouin Arabic is like a different language - is the description of how she left Beersheba in 1948. The

Israelis were attacking the settlement with gun fire. She was alone with two young children. How to flee? She tied their arms together around her neck with rope, and ran.

Since then her life has been, as I see, one of poverty. The shack has little in it but straw mats, a few covers, a cupboard, a primus, and a broken mirror on a nail.

Umm Muhammad's hair, which she wears under a black head-cover, is still quite dark, darker than mine. She pats my hand and says her hair has stayed black because she cries a lot. My hair is white because I keep my sadness in my heart. She says that her best friend died recently. She thinks of her every day.

Umm Muhammad begins her story: (Not translated yet.)

Bureij is close to the militarized border separating Gaza from Naqab. After saying goodbye to Umm Muhammad, we go to see the electronic fence that Israel has erected between the two areas. If anyone touches it, an alarum is set off marking the exact spot. On the other side of the fence there are rolling acres of wheatland and woods, once cultivated by bedouin.

As we go back we drive between orchards on a dusty road that an archeologist with us for the ride says is perhaps the oldest in the world. It used to connect North and West Africa to China. This whole area is full of ancient remains - fossils, skeletons, pottery and other artefacts. General Dayan stole a great deal of it after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1967.