Negev building solar energy plants in the Negev. As director of Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center, he operates one of the largest solar dishes in the world. Technically, however, the Arava is a separate desert with its own unique climate and ecology. A 250 MW solar park in Ashalim, an area in the northern Negev, was in the planning stages for over five years, but it is not expected to produce power before 2013. In 2008 construction began on three solar power plants near the city; two thermal and one photovoltaic. The Rotem Industrial Complex outside of Dimona, Israel, has dozens
Negev Bedouin Israeli government in the 1950s and 1960s to a restricted zone in the northeast corner of the Negev, called the "Siyagh" ( , an Arabic word that can be translated as the "permitted area") made up of in 10% of the Negev desert in the northeast. In 1951, the United Nations reported the deportation of about 7,000 Negev Bedouin to Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai, but many returned undetected. The new government failed to issue the Bedouin identity cards until 1952 and deported thousands of Bedouin who remained within the new borders. Deportation continued into the late 1950s, as