The Poleg () is a stream in the Sharon plain in

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 ...

that empties into the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

between

Netanya Netanya () () or Natanya (), is a city in the "Planet Bekasi" Central District (Israel), Setanyahu of Israel, Israel BAB ih, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa, between the Poleg stre ...

and the

Wingate Institute Wingate Institute (), officially Orde Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sports (), is a sports training institute located south of Netanya, Israel. History Wingate Institute was established in 1957. It was named after Orde Wingate. ...

Geography

The stream starts between Tira and Ramat HaKovesh, east of Mishmeret. It runs west to the sea, veering north at Batzra. It is mostly intermittent, and becomes a

perennial stream A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long, large stream ...

towards its end. There is a man-made opening in the ''

kurkar Kurkar ( /) is the term used in Arabic and modern Hebrew for the rock type of which lithification, lithified sea sand dunes consist. The equivalent term used in Lebanon is ramleh. History Kurkar is the regional name for an aeolian quartz sands ...

'' ridge that runs south-north along the coastal plain.

History

In Arabic, the stream had been known as , alternatively transliterated as ; and later as . The nearby Tel Poleg archaeological site was excavated, revealing a fortified city of the

Middle Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

. The site has mostly been destroyed by a modern quarry. The original opening in the ''kurkar'' ridge was made in the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

, and reopened during the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

period. The

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

called the stream ''River Rochetaillé'' ("Split-rock River") because of the long narrow rock channel, cut artificially at some former period through the inland cliffs, by which the river finds a channel to the sea shore. On 6 September 1191, the night before the

Battle of Arsuf The Battle of Arsuf took place on 7 September 1191, as part of the Third Crusade. It saw a multi-national force of Crusaders, led by Richard I of England, defeat a significantly larger army of the Ayyubid Sultanate, led by Saladin. Followi ...

, the Crusaders camped near the mouth of ''River Rochetaillé''; by then, the opening in the ridge had clogged again, resulting in a 4000-

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...

, which protected the Crusaders' camp from the east. The opening was cleared again in 1935, and the stream's current course was set in the area east of the ''kurkar'' ridge. The marsh, known by the Arabs as ''Birkat Ramadan'', remained south of

Tel Yitzhak Tel Yitzhak () is a kibbutz in central Israel. Located in the Israeli coastal plain, coastal plain to the south-east of Netanya, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaSharon Regional Council. In it had a population of . History The region of ...

as late as 1945, and was a popular hunting location with abundant wildfowl.

Nature Reserve

The Nahal Poleg nature reserve is situated between

and Ramat Poleg, between Highway 2 and the Mediterranean. It covers 500 dunams, and was declared a reserve in 1971. Flora in the reserve includes a coastal variety of Boxthorn, '' Ephedra aphylla'', '' Calicotome villosa'', the endemic ''

Rumex The docks and sorrels, genus ''Rumex'', are a genus of about 200 species of annual, biennial, and perennial herbs in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae. Members of this genus are very common perennial herbs with a native almost worldwide distri ...

rothschildianus'', '' Iris atropurpurea'',

Lupin ''Lupinus'', commonly known as lupin, lupine, or regionally bluebonnet, is a genus of plants in the legume family Fabaceae. The genus includes over 199 species, with centres of diversity in North and South America. Smaller centres occur in No ...

, and ''

Tulip Tulips are spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes in the ''Tulipa'' genus. Their flowers are usually large, showy, and brightly coloured, generally red, orange, pink, yellow, or white. They often have a different colour ...

a agenensis sharonensis''.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poleg, Nahal Rivers of Israel Nature reserves in Israel Landforms of Central District (Israel) Protected areas of Central District (Israel)

Geography

History

Nature Reserve

See also

References

External links