page_title: HaBesor Stream
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: HaBesor Stream / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Yeruham Lake עברית: אגם ירוחם
context_page_description: Besor is a wadi in southern Israel. The stream begins at Mount Boker, and spills into the Mediterranean Sea near Al-Zahra in the Gaza Strip, where it is called Wadi Ghazzeh, also spelled Wadi Gaza. Further upstream it is marked as Wadi esh-Shallaleh on the 1878 Survey of Western Palestine map. There are several important archaeological sites located in this area.
  The stream is the largest in the northern Negev, and together with its largest tributaries, the Nahal Gerar, and the Beersheba stream, reaches as far east into the desert as Sde Boker, Yeruham, Dimona and Arad/Tel Arad. The Gaza section of the Coastal Aquifer is the only significant source of water in the Gaza Strip. The Wadi Gaza runs through a wetland, the Gaza Valley, and as of 2012 it is used as a wastewater dump.
context_section_description: In the Old Testament Besor was a ravine or brook in the extreme south-west of Judah, where 200 of David's men stayed behind because they were faint, while the other 400 pursued the Amalekites (1 Samuel 30:9-10, 30:21).
  Between 1951 and 1954, the Yeruham Dam was built on one of the tributaries of the HaBesor Stream.
caption: Yeruham Reservoir
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