Formerly the paramount clan, the Hukuk grazed the land from Jebel al-Khalil (Hebron) to Wadi al-'Araba, south of the Dead Sea and taxed anyone wishing to cross their territory.
In the 1930s their leader was one Sheikh Salman whose grandfather had been hung by the Turkish authorities for abducting women and levying illegal dues on bedouin around Gaza.
During the early years of the twentieth century they were led by Shaykh Ali ibn 'Atiya, who was widely respected, serving on local official bodies as well as the General Council in Jerusalem.
[7] A number of other tribes and clans were allied to the Tiyaha: The Shallaliyin (1,000); The Bani 'Uqba living around Beersheba; The Qatatiwa also arriving in the Negev in the early nineteenth century; The Qalazin (200) and the Badinat (350).
[10] North West of Saint Catherine's, near the fort at Nakhl where the Haj road enters Jebel Tih, their progress was stopped by a large group of Tiyaha who refused to allow the Tawarah to cross their territory.
[11] The writer observed that the Tiyaha were armed with guns plundered from the retreating Egyptian army in 1841, and on the way back from Petra, south of the Dead Sea, they came across bones and complete skeletons of soldiers who had been attempting to reach Gaza.
[15] On the way back across Wadi 'Arabah they were joined by four Tiyaha men escorting 40 camels from grazing East of Mount Seir which they were taking to Gaza to sell.
[16] In an 1874 list of Bedouin tribes produced by a member of the Palestine Exploration Fund survey team, the Tiyaha are described as "in the Desert of the Tih".
Claude R. Conder, who was surveying Gaza District for the Palestine Exploration Fund, reported that part of the territory belonging to the Tiyaha included 200 square miles north of Beersheba.