BEERSHEBA, ISRAEL

Beersheba, courtesy IsraelCities.com

The city of Beersheba is the largest city in the southern Negev region of Israel, with a population of over 200,000. It has acted as the “capital” of the Negev for decades. Awarded to the prospective Arab state in 1947, it was recaptured by Israel following attacks from there by local Arabs as well as the Arab army of Egypt.

The history of Beersheba goes back to pre-Hebraic times but written records are first mentioned in Biblical sources. In the Book of Genesis, the site of Beersheba was recorded as being under the control of the Philistines. It was here that Abraham dug a well that was later violently taken away by the servants of Abimelech, king of the Philistines. Promised protection, Abraham and Abimelech made an oath with seven ewe lambs and the name of the place was henceforth called “Beersheba” (well of seven). Abraham’s son Isaac renewed the oath. For a time, it was the dwelling place of Isaac’s son Jacob, before his sojourn in Egypt.

After the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, Beersheba was allotted to the tribe of Shimon. It was the southernmost city settled by the Israelites, hence the expression "from Dan to Beersheba" which described the whole of Israelite territory from north to south.

The sons of the priest-judge Samuel were judges here.

Saul, Israel's first king, built a fort here for his campaign against the Amalekites.

During the period of the divided kingdom when Ahab ruled in the north and Asa ruled in the south, Beersheba was considered the gateway to the desert. The prophet Elijah, while escaping the wrath of Queen Jezebel, wife of King Ahab, took refuge in Beersheba before continuing on his journey to Mt. Horeb.

Under the Roman occupation, the native Israelites slowly abandoned the city and Christians, and later the Byzantine Christians, gradually took over. Then during the Muslim conquest in the 7^th century, Beersheba was totally abandoned and destroyed. It remained abandoned until the late 19th/early 20^th centuries when the modern city was built by the Ottoman Turks for the Bedouin of the area, acquiring the nickname as "the first Bedouin city." By 1914, Beersheba had a population of 1000, made up mostly of Bedouin and non-Bedouin Arabs from the Hebron and Gaza areas, as well as a small number of Jews one of whom, ran a flour mill.

In World War I, Turkish fortifications were laid out around the town and more settlers, including Jews, came and provided services to the Turkish army. In 1920, now under British rule, a few Jewish laborers planted a tree nursery and eucalyptus grove there and experimented with cultivating vegetables and other crops. In 1922, the population reached 2,356, among whom were 98 Jews. Due to the Arab riots in 1929 when many Jews were ethnically cleansed from various parts of Palestine including Beersheba, the number of Beersheba Jews decreased to 11. These last Jews were, as well, ethnically cleansed during the 1936–39 riots. In spite of this, efforts were intensified to purchase land for Jewish settlement in the Negev.

Following the conclusion of the War of Independence, the 1949 Armistice Agreements formally granted Beersheba to Israel. After a few months, the town's war-damaged houses were repaired. As a post-independence wave of Jewish immigration to Israel began, Beersheba experienced a population boom as thousands of immigrants moved in. They came mainly from North Africa, Iraq, India, Romania, Poland, Hungary, and South America. The city rapidly expanded beyond its core, which became known as the "Old City" as new neighborhoods were built around it, complete with various housing projects such as apartment buildings and houses with auxiliary farms, as well as shopping centers and schools. The Old City was turned into a city center, with shops, restaurants, and government and utility offices. An industrial area and one of the largest cinemas in Israel were also built in the city. It was also a communication center linking to the Lod-Kiryat Gat and Dimonah-Oron highways. A pumping station of the Eilat-Haifa oil pipeline was located there. Its largest industries (ceramics, sanitary ware, fire-resistant bricks, pesticides and other chemicals, and bromide compounds) exploited Negev minerals. There was also a large textile factory, flour mill, machine garage, and smaller plants for building materials, diamonds, metals, and other industries. The city had several academic, scientific, and cultural institutions. Among the first was the Municipal Museum. In 1957, the Negev Institute for Arid Zone Research was established, experimenting in water desalination by electrodialysis, exploitation of solar energy, cloud seeding, adaptation of plants to aridity, hydroponics, and human behavior under desert conditions. Other endeavors were: Soroka Hospital (opened in 1960), Ben Gurion University (originally the Institute for Higher Education which opened in 1965, becoming the University of the Negev in 1970, and finally its present name in 1973), the Beersheba Theater and the Symphony Orchestra (both 1973), Shamoon College of Engineering (1995), and the city's tallest building, Rambam Square 2, a 32-story apartment building (2003). The city also serves as a market center for the Negev's tens of thousands of Bedouin. The traditional Thursday, Bedouin market day, is a noted tourist attraction.

Other tourist attractions are the many sites of ancient remains including those at Tell el-Sheba, the most ancient site of Beersheba. In addition, a park, to be called Beit Eshel Park, will be established around the nearby Biblical town of Beit Eshel at the official entrance to the river park.

As with the rest of Israel, Beersheba has also seen its fair share of terrorist incidents. 1998: sixty four people were wounded in a grenade attack; 2004: sixteen people were killed in two suicide bombings on commuter buses in Beersheba for which Hamas claimed responsibility; 2005: another suicide bomber attacked the central bus station, seriously injuring two security guards and 45 bystanders; 12/27/2008-1/18/2009: During Operation Cast Lead, Hamas fired over 2000 rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel, including Beersheba; 2010: an Arab attacked and injured two people with an axe; 2012: a Palestinian from Jenin was stopped before a stabbing attack in a "safe house"; 2015: a lone gunman shot and killed a soldier guarding the Beersheva bus station before being gunned down by police; 2016: the Shin Bet thwarted a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror attack at a wedding hall.