Negev additives. Vegetation in the Negev is sparse, but certain trees and plants thrive there, among them "Acacia", "Pistacia", "Retama", "Urginea maritima" and "Thymelaea". A small population of Arabian leopards, an endangered animal in the Arabian peninsula, survives in the southern Negev. The Negev Tortoise ("Testudo werneri") is a critically endangered species that currently lives only in the sands of the western and central Negev Desert. The Negev shrew ("Crocidura ramona") is a species of mammal of the family Soricidae found only in Israel. "Hyphaene thebaica" or doum palm can be found in the Southern Negev. Evrona is the most northerly
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