Beit Eshel

The story

Beit Eshel was a Hebrew settlement that was abandoned after the War of Independence, and its remains are today in the southeastern part of Beersheba. It has been declared a War of Independence site and a heritage site. The settlement was established on the ground in August 1943 as one of the three observation outposts set up in the Negev in that year in order to test the feasibility of agriculture in the region and the manner of living in it, about two kilometers east of Beersheba. Its founders were a Youth Aliyah group, natives of Austria, who were educated at Kfar Vitkin and trained at Shimron, and unlike Revivim and Gvulot they sought to establish a moshav ovdim at the place. The settlement was based on field crops, a chicken coop, a small vegetable garden, the working of sheep's wool and craft. A severe shortage of water accompanied it from its beginning: a well was drilled to a depth of more than seventy meters so as not to be dependent on tankers, and the quality of the water was poor. In 1945 a permanent camp surrounded by a wall was built, with a kitchen and a dining hall, three living quarters, an armory and a two-story security house; the construction was carried out by Solel Boneh according to the design of the architect Yaakov Matrikin. In the nearby wadi an earth dam was built and fruit orchards were planted that relied on the damming of floodwaters. In May 1948, with the Egyptian invasion, the settlement was left cut off, under siege and under bombardment for five months; its members blew up the security house after they understood that it was serving as an aiming point for the Egyptian guns. The place held out until the IDF entered Beersheba in October 1948. After the war the members moved to the Jezreel Valley and laid the foundation for the moshav Ha-Yogev. Since the end of the 1960s the site has been preserved by the Beit Eshel association.

• British Mandate
• 1948
• Commemoration
• Water and wells
• War
• Beersheba