The al-Hanajira were said to have migrated to Palestine via Transjordan at the beginning of Islamic conquests within the region. In 1830, the
Acre-based governor of Gaza,
Abdullah Pasha, concentrated his forces to put down a rebellion in
Jabal Nablus, leaving Gaza and the Negev relatively unsecured. The Bani Attiya tribe of
Wadi Araba sought to exploit the lack of state authority and encroached upon the territories of the
Negev Bedouin tribes, including the Beersheba plains, without the permission of Salman Ali Azzam al-Huzayl, the
Tiyaha chief of the area. Al-Huzayl subsequently formed a coalition with the Hanajira and evicted the Bani Atiyya after four battles at
Wadi Ar'ara, Tell Rakhima, Wadi Abu Tulul and al-Mashash. The
Palestine Exploration Fund reported that in the late 19th century, the Hanajira grew tobacco and watermelons at Khirbet Emkemen between
Khan Yunis and
Rafah. During the
British Mandate period between 1920 and 1947, the overall chief of the al-Hanajira and one of the influential tribal chiefs in the Negev was Sheikh Freih Farhan Abu Middein. He served with the
British Army during
World War I, and after the Mandate's establishment, he was appointed to the Tribal Court and the Advisory Council of the High Commissioner. In the early 1920s he became the mayor of Beersheba, his place of residence, and in 1922 became a member of the Legislative Council. The chief of the Nuseirat during this period was Sheikh Aaysh Farhan al-Msaddar, who was later succeeded by Sheikh Freih al-Msaddar in 1940. Following the
Israeli Army's
main offensive against
Egyptian forces in the Gaza region and its capture of the western Negev Desert in late December 1948 during the
First Arab-Israeli War, Freih Mustafa Abu Middein, the grandson of the Abu Middein clan's former chief Sheikh Freih Farhan, was appointed the Minister of Justice by then-
Palestinian Authority chairman
Yasser Arafat in the 1990s. ==Education==