73

31°30′43″N / 34°43′2″E

October 10, 2011. Badlands (see 2) within the JNF Ruḥama reserve north of Kibbutz Ruḥama (lit., “Mercy”) on the former land of the al-Fuqara village, of the ‛Arab al-Jbarāt tribe, evacuated in the aftermath of Operation Yoʼav in 1948 (see 7). Eight other former ­Palestinian villages lie within six kilometers of the site. Established in 1911, Kibbutz Ruḥama was considered to be the first Jewish settlement in the Negev. After the kibbutzniks were expelled by the Ottomans in 1917, the kibbutz lay vacant for decades. An artesian well dug in the area led the Allied forces to make the Ruḥama region their headquarters during the British Army and the Jewish–American Legion conquest of Palestine. The kibbutz was re-established in 1944, and the surrounding area subsequently declared a nature reserve. This particular set of badlands is characterized by loess (a silt-sized sediment) and the sand typical to the region that in the autumn appears a rich and deep brown, “Ruḥama brown.”