What is the Negev Desert?

Weather of Arabia - The Negev Desert is one of the largest deserts in the Middle East. It is located in southern Palestine and north of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, where it is considered one of the beautiful natural places in the world. It is characterized by its mountainous terrain, deep valleys, and stunning views.

Where is the Negev Desert located?

The Negev desert region constitutes 40% of the area of historical Palestine, and is located in the southern part of the country, extending from the city of Ashkelon on the western coast to central Palestine, and extending towards Rafah on the border with Sinai. The length of the longest point in the Negev is about 190 kilometers , and its width reaches To about 80 kilometers , it is bordered to the east by the Gulf of Eilat and the Dead Sea, and to the west it extends from Rafah in Gaza to Taba in Egypt, and extends north to the borders of the Gaza Strip and the Hebron Mountains in the northwest.

In total, the area of the Negev region covers more than 12.4 thousand square kilometers , and about 200 thousand Palestinians live there according to 2008 statistics. Despite their number, most of them live on less than 2% of their land area, and their number declined sharply after the Nakba in 1948 . Most of them left the Negev region and moved to the Gaza Strip, Jordan, and the eastern deserts of the West Bank. For those remaining in the region, they currently constitute about 12% of the population of Palestine within the 1948 borders.

History of the Negev Desert

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ottoman authorities established the city of Beersheba in the Negev Desert as the first city in the region. About 2,000 dunums of land from the Azazma clan were purchased to establish the city in an attempt to encourage families to settle in the region. The area of the settled lands in 1920 was estimated at approximately 3,750,000 dunums. .

In the Negev region, there are 46 Arab villages , and the population of these villages is about 86 thousand people . The population numbers in these villages range between at least 400 people and a maximum of 5,000 people . The region includes several prominent tribes such as the Tarabin, Al-Tayhat, Al-Jabbarat, and Al-Azazma. And the throats, and the happy ones, and the lives.

Features of the Negev Desert

The Negev Desert is characterized by a harsh desert climate , as the percentage of rainfall is clearly low, and it is characterized by high maximum temperatures that may reach around 50 degrees Celsius in the summer, while it drops to about 7 degrees Celsius in the winter, and the winds are usually directed towards the northeast and south. Western sometimes.

The Bedouins, who number about 317 thousand people , constitute half of the total population of the Negev region, and represent a third of the population of the southern administrative region. In addition, the city of Rahat comes out on top as the second largest city in the Negev.

The Negev Desert is a distinctive and complex place that combines natural beauty with environmental challenges. This region faces major challenges in the field of drought and desertification, but there are efforts made to preserve the environment and sustainability that reflect a strong commitment to preserving this unique natural heritage.

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How does climate change threaten olive trees?

Sources:

aljazeera

shbabbek