The Nahal Be'er Sheva (נַחַל בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע; Beersheba Stream) is a stream in southern

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

which originates just west of

Tel Arad Tel Arad () or Tell 'Arad () is an archaeological site consisting of a lower section and a Tell (archaeology), tell or mound, located west of the Dead Sea, about west of the Israeli city of Arad, Israel, Arad in an area surrounded by mountain r ...

, southeast of the

Yatir Forest Yatir Forest () is a forest in Israel on the edge of the Negev Desert. The forest covers an area of 30,000 dunams (), and is the largest planted forest in Israel. History The first trees were planted in 1964 by the Jewish National Fund at the i ...

, and is a tributary of the

Besor Stream Wadi Gaza () and Besor Stream (, ) are parts of a river system in the Gaza Strip in Palestine and the Negev region of Israel. Wadi Gaza is a wadi (river valley) that divides the northern and southern ends of the Gaza Strip, whose major tributar ...

. Its tributaries are the Nahal Yatir, the

Nahal Hevron The Nahal Hevron (נחל חברון; Hebron Stream), known in Arabic as the Wadi al-Khalil upstream and the Wadi al-Samen downstream, is a stream that flows along the border between Judea and the Negev. The source of the Nahal Hevron is in the ...

and the Nahal Sakher. It is named for the city of

Beersheba Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most p ...

, the largest city on its banks. A major archeological site on its banks is

Tel Be'er Sheva Tel Sheva () or Tel Be'er Sheva (), also known as Tell es-Seba (), is an archaeological site in the Southern District of Israel, believed to be the site of the ancient biblical town of Beer-sheba. The site lies east of modern Beersheba and wes ...

. It contains many archeological finds, including a

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

livestock market at the Well of Abraham, which the Bedouin called the '' Suq al-Waqef'', a

winepress A winepress is a device used to extract juice from crushed grapes during winemaking. There are a number of different styles of presses that are used by wine makers but their overall functionality is the same. Each style of press exerts controll ...

and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

-era tombs. It converges with the Besor Stream at a location known as the ''Mifgash'' (מפגש; Meeting place),A.N. Goring-Morris, P. Goldberg, Late Quaternary dune incursions in the southern levant: Archaeology, chronology and palaeoenvironments, Quaternary International, Volume 5, 1990, ISSN 1040-6182

just southeast of Tze'elim.

Tributaries

The Nahal Be'er Sheva has three major tributaries. * The Nahal Sakher (or Nahal Secher), which originates west of Qasr al-Sir and drains into the Nahal Be'er Sheva just east of the Mifgash. * The

(Arabic: Wadi al-Khalil (upstream), Wadi al-Samen (downstream)). * The Nahal Yatir.

Notes

References

{{coord, 31.19186, 34.56812, format=dms, type:river_region:IL, display=title Negev Landforms of Southern District (Israel) Rivers of Israel Beersheba