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31°25′14″N / 34°28′24″E
October 10, 2011. Decommissioned British-era munitions storage base near the Gaza border, constructed in the early 1940s in anticipation of an attack by the Germans from North Africa during WWII (see 33). Shown here are some of the 170 soil mounds built in a square missing rib formation as fortification and protection from the wind. Low walls along one side are to prevent an explosion from one storage space igniting a neighboring site. Following the German defeat by the Allied forces in the battle of al-‛Alamein, the fortifications proved unnecessary, and have not been used since 1942. The site is on the historical Bedouin villages of Abu Mwēlek/Ḥasanāt, of the Tarabīn tribe, which were evacuated during Operation Yoʼav (see 7). Nearby is Kibbutz Beʼeri (lit., “my well”), established in 1946 as one of eleven “points” of Jewish settlement planned to assure a Jewish presence in the area prior to the partition of Palestine.