21
31°8′7″N / 35°12′25″E
November 22, 2011. Evaporation ponds at the Arad Phosphate Mine. Resources in the Negev include copper, iron, manganese, phosphates, and uranium. The Arad facility mines the highest grade phosphates, with estimates of between thirty and sixty thousand tons of uranium contained in low-level phosphate ores, much of which is extracted in the three mines of the parent company, Rotem Amfert Negev Ltd. Established in 1952, initially as Negev Phosphates, the company’s Arad site is adjacent to the Dimona Nuclear Research Center. The state acknowledges the existence of the site, but maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying that it contains nuclear weapons. Constructed in secret (beginning in 1958) with French assistance, outside the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection regime, the airspace over the nuclear research center is closed, and the area around it is heavily guarded and fenced off. Bedouin tribes are kept 15–20 kilometers from the fence.