Negev

The origin of the word Negev is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'; in the Hebrew Bible, the word Negev is also used for the direction 'south'. Some English-language translations use the spelling Negeb. The Negev mentioned in the Bible (see below) consisted only of the northernmost part of the modern Israeli Negev, with the semiarid Arad-Beersheba Valley defined as "the eastern (biblical) Negev". In Arabic, the Negev is known as an-Naqab or an-Naqb ('the [mountain] pass'), though it was not thought of as a distinct region until the demarcation of the Egypt-Ottoman frontier in the 1890s and has no single Arabic name. During the British Mandate, it was called "Beersheba sub-district".. ==Geography==

The Negev contains the oldest continuously exposed surface discovered on Earth, with an approximate age of 1.8 million years. During the Pleistocene, the Negev fluctuated between intervals of relative humidity and intervals of aridity similar to or even more severe than the present day; from around 80,000 to 13,000 years BP, during a time interval roughly corresponding to the Last Glacial Period, the Negev was significantly more humid than today. It covers more than half of Israel, over some , or at least 55% of the country's land area. It forms an inverted triangle shape whose western side is contiguous with the desert of the Sinai Peninsula, and whose eastern border is the Arabah valley. The Negev has a number of interesting cultural and geological features. Among the latter are three enormous, craterlike makhteshim (box canyons), which are unique to the region: Makhtesh Ramon, HaMakhtesh HaGadol, and HaMakhtesh HaKatan. The Negev is a rocky desert. It is a melange of brown, rocky, dusty mountains interspersed by wadis (dry riverbeds with plants that flower briefly after rain) and deep craters. It can be split into five different ecological regions: northern, western and central Negev, the high plateau and the Arabah Valley. The northern Negev, or Mediterranean zone, receives of rain annually and has fairly fertile soil. The western Negev receives of rain per year, with light and partially sandy soil. Sand dunes can reach heights of up to here. Home to the city of Beersheba, the central Negev has an annual precipitation of and is characterised by impervious soil, known as loess, allowing minimum penetration of water with greater soil erosion and water runoff. The high plateau area of Negev Mountains/Ramat HaNegev (, The Negev Heights) stands between and above sea level with extreme temperatures in summer and winter. The area receives of rain per year, with inferior and partially salty soil. The Arabah Valley along the Jordanian border stretches from Eilat in the south to the tip of the Dead Sea in the north. The Arabah Valley is very arid with barely of rain annually. It has inferior soil, in which little can grow without irrigation and special soil additives. ==Flora and fauna==

species growing in high plateau of the Negev, Acacia pachyceras'' is the most cold-resistant. Vegetation in the Negev is sparse, but certain trees and plants thrive there, among them Acacia, Pistacia, Retama, Urginea maritima and Thymelaea. Hyphaene thebaica or doum palm can be found in the Southern Negev. The Evrona Nature Reserve is the most northerly point in the world where this palm can be found. flowering in the Negev Mountains around early spring A small population of Arabian leopards, an endangered animal in the Arabian peninsula, has survived in the southern Negev but is now probably extinct. Other carnivora found in the Negev are the caracal, the striped hyena, the Arabian wolf, the golden jackal and the marbled polecat. The Arabah Arabian gazelle survives with a few individuals in the Negev. The dorcas gazelle is more numerous, with some 1,000–1,500 individuals in the Negev. The Negev shrew is a species of mammal of the family Soricidae that is found only in Israel. A population of the critically endangered Kleinmann's tortoise (also known as the Negev tortoise) survives in the sands of the western and central Negev Desert. Desert snails of the genus Euchondrus feed on endolithic lichens which live inside limestone rocks, converting rock and lichen into soil, and releasing between 22 and 27 milligrams of nitrogen per square metre of soil through their faeces. Animals that were reintroduced after their extinction in the wild or localised extinction respectively are the Arabian oryx and the Asiatic wild ass, which in the Negev number about 250 animals. Like many areas in Israel and the rest of the Middle East, the Negev used to host in the distant past the Asiatic lion and the Asiatic cheetah until their complete extinction at the hands of humans in later centuries. The Arabian ostrich was once common in the Negev, but became extinct in the 1920s due to widespread hunting by humans. There was an attempt to reintroduce the ostrich to the Negev using the North African ostrich in 2004 but it failed. ==Climate==

The Negev region is arid (Eilat receives on average only of rainfall a year), receiving very little rain due to its location to the east of the Sahara (as opposed to the Mediterranean, which lies to the west of Israel), and extreme temperatures due to its location 31 degrees north. However the northernmost areas of the Negev, including Beersheba, are semi-arid. The usual rainfall total from June to October inclusive is zero. Snow and frost are rare in the northern Negev, and snow and frost are unknown in the vicinity of Eilat in the southernmost Negev. }} }} ==History==

Prehistorical nomads Nomadic life in the Negev dates back at least 4,000 years and perhaps as much as 7,000 years. Bronze Age The first urbanised settlements were established by a combination of Canaanite, Amalekite, Amorite, Nabataean and Edomite groups . Biblical Extent of biblical Negev According to Israeli archaeologists, in the Hebrew Bible, the term Negev only relates to the northern, semi-arid part of what we call Negev today; of this, the Arad-Beersheba Valley, which receives enough rain to permit agriculture and therefore sedentary occupation (the "desert fringe"), is accordingly defined as "the eastern (biblical) Negev". Iron Age shrine at Tel Arad In the 9th century BC, development and expansion of mining in both the Negev and Edom (modern Jordan) coincided with the rise of the Assyrian Empire. The Nabateans controlled the trade on the spice route between their capital Petra and the Gazan seaports. Nabatean currency and the remains of red and orange potsherds, identified as a trademark of their civilisation, have been found along the route, remnants of which are also still visible. This permitted the cultivation of plants with much higher water requirements than the given arid environment could provide for. The older explanation for the Tuleilat el-Anab, lit. 'grape mounds' phenomenon, has also been discarded: these large piles of rocks probably served two purposes: removing the rocks from the cultivated plots and accelerating the erosion and water transportation of topsoil from the runoff collection area onto those plots. Along with Avdat (Oboda), Mamshit (Mampsis), Shivta (Sobata), Haluza (Elusa), and Nitzana (Nessana), the settlements at Rehovot-in-the-Negev/Ruheibeh (the second largest by population of the Byzantine-era "Negev towns") and Saadon are also significant for this period. Decline; causes A massive increase in grape production in the northwestern Negev for the requirements of the wine industry was noted for the early 6th century, documented by studying ancient refuse mounds at Shivta, Elusa and Nessana. Six Islamic settlements have been found in the vicinity of modern Eilat, along with copper and gold mines and stone quarries, a sophisticated irrigation system and road network. A year later, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine allotted a larger part of the area to the Jewish State which became Israel. The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France placed the Negev in Area B, "Arab state or states" under British patronage. The Negev was appropriated from the Ottoman army by British forces during 1917 and became part of Mandatory Palestine. In 1922, the Bedouin component of the population was estimated at 72,898 out of a total of 75,254 for the Beersheba sub-district. The 1931 census estimated that the population of the Beersheba sub-district was 51,082. This large decrease was considered to be an artifact of incorrect enumeration methods used in 1922. State of Israel Most of the Negev was earmarked by the November 1947 UN Partition Plan for the future Jewish state. During the 1947–49 War of Independence, Israel secured its sovereignty over the Negev. In the early years of the state, it absorbed many of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries, with the Israeli government setting up many development towns, such as Arad, Sderot and Netivot. Since then, the Negev has also become home to many of the Israel Defense Forces' major bases – a process accelerating in the past two decades. ==Demography==

With effect from 2010, the Negev was home to some 630,000 people, or 8.2% of Israel's population, even though it comprises over 55% of the country's area. 470,000 Negev residents (75% of the population) are Jews, while 160,000 or 25% are Bedouin. Of the Bedouin population (a demographic with a semi-nomadic tradition), 50% live in unrecognized villages, and 50% live in towns built for them by the Israeli government between the 1960s and 1980s; the largest of these is Rahat. The population of the Negev is expected to reach 1.2 million by 2025. It was projected that the Beersheba metropolitan area would reach a population of 1 million by 2020, and Arad, Yeruham, and Dimona would triple in size by 2025. Bedouin , the largest Bedouin city in the Negev A large part of the Negev Bedouins inhabit small communities or villages. Israel has refused to recognise certain Bedouin villages that were founded after the establishment of the state. Under Israel's 2011-adopted and enacted Begin-Prawer plan – officially the Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev – some Bedouins are being moved to newly created townships. Bedouin villages established without proper sanction after establishment of the state are illegal under Israeli law. They are consequently destroyed or threatened with destruction. An Israeli court ruling in 2017 forced six residents to pay the cost of eight rounds of demolition to the state. ==Economy and housing==

Development plans mobile homes, 2009 Blueprint Negev is a Jewish National Fund project introduced in 2005. The $600 million project is intended to attract 500,000 new Jewish residents to the Negev by improving transport infrastructure, establishing businesses, developing water resources and introducing programmes to protect the environment. A planned artificial desert river, swimming pools and golf courses raised concerns among environmentalists. Critics oppose those plans, calling instead for an inclusive plan for the green vitalisation of existing population centres, investment in Bedouin villages, a clean-up of toxic industries and development of job options for the unemployed. A major Israel Defense Forces training base is being constructed in the Negev to accommodate 10,000 army personnel and 2,500 civilian staff. Three more bases will be built by 2020 as part of a plan to vacate land and buildings in Tel Aviv and central Israel, and bring jobs and investment to the south. Solar power The Negev Desert and the surrounding area, including the Arava Valley, are the sunniest parts of Israel and little of this land is arable, which is why it has become the centre of the Israeli solar industry. David Faiman, an expert on solar energy, is of the opinion that Israel's future energy requirements could be met by building solar energy plants in the Negev. As director of Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center, he operates one of the largest solar dishes in the world. Technically, however, the Arava is a separate desert with its own unique climate and ecology. A 250 MW solar park in Ashalim, an area in the northern Negev, the Ashalim Power Station, produces 121 Megawatts of power, using solar mirrors and thermal water heating. It is currently the largest in Israel. The Rotem Industrial Complex outside of Dimona, Israel, has dozens of solar mirrors that focus the sun's rays on a tower that in turn heats a water boiler to create steam, turning a turbine to create electricity. Luz II, Ltd., plans to use the solar array to test new technology for the three new solar plants to be built in California, USA for Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Wineries in the Negev Vines have been planted in the Negev since ancient times. In modern times, vineyards have been established in the northern Negev hills using innovative computerised irrigation methods. Carmel Winery was the first of the major wineries to plant vineyards in the Negev and operates a boutique winery at Ramat Arad. Tishbi has vineyards at Sde Boker and Barkan grows its grapes in Mitzpe Ramon. Yatir Winery is a winery in Tel Arad. Its vineyards are on a hill 900 metres above sea level on the outskirts of Yatir Forest. Carmey Avdat is Israel's first solar-powered winery. ==Environmental issues==

The Negev is home to hazardous infrastructures that include Negev Nuclear Research Center nuclear reactor, 22 agrochemical and petrochemical factories, an oil terminal, closed military zones, quarries, a toxic waste incinerator at Ne'ot Hovav, cell towers, a power plant, several airports, a prison, and two rivers of open sewage. In 2005, the Tel Aviv municipality was accused of dumping waste in the Negev at the . The Manufacturers Association of Israel established an authority in 2005 to move 60 industrial enterprises active in the Tel Aviv region to the Negev. industrial zone, protesting against pollution In 1979, the Ramat Hovav toxic waste facility was established in Wadi el-Na'am because the area was perceived as invulnerable to leakage. However, within a decade, cracks were found in the rock beneath Ramat Hovav. However, its final conclusions – that Bedouin and Jewish residents near Ramat Hovav are significantly more susceptible than the rest of the population to miscarriages, severe birth defects, and respiratory diseases – passed a peer review several months later. ==See also==