In 1946, directly after the Yom Kippur fast, Jewish settlers set up camp at 11 points throughout the Negev desert. They wanted to claim the land and ensure the area would be included as part of the Jewish State when Palestine was partitioned later in the year.
In this newsreel, settlers labor in a settlement near Kastina.
“The plan, which they called Operation Negev, was carried out at dawn on the 6th of October, just after the Day of Atonement,” the narrator reports, as the settlers toil away on-screen.
According to the announcer, this land was owned by the Jewish National Fund.
“This particular settlement, filmed about 24 hours after the start, could already show houses well on the way to completion, and the whole place surrounded by a barbed-wire fence,” he adds.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the
terms
(The Associated Press and Movietone News recently released their vast video archives on YouTube, allowing the public to freely access a million minutes worth of historical news clips dating back to 1895 — including many iconic scenes from Israel’s history featured in this Times of Israel series.)
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
— Stav Levaton, military reporter
Yes, I'll join
Yes, I'll join
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
