Shokeda Forest and the Black Arrow Memorial

The Darom Adom (Red South) festival is held annually in the northern Negev, a desert and semi-desert region of southern Israel. I have blogged about it before, back in 2015 and 2014. Fields of anemones, a perennial in the buttercup (Ranunculaceae) family, colour the desert red and are a huge attraction, bringing thousands to the area. Last month Mister Handmade in Israel and I decided on the spur of the moment to visit the Shokeda Forest once again and, though the anemone season was nearing its end, the green fields all around were still flecked with numerous red patches.

The Shokeda Forest is a eucalyptus forest located east of Moshav Shokeda in the north-western Negev region (the southern part of Israel, near the Gaza strip). The KKL-JNF (Jewish National Fund) began to plant the forest in the 1950s. The woodland includes eucalyptus, tamarisks, pines and casuarinas, and it is studded with well-preserved heritage sites, play areas, picnic sites and cycling trails.

According to a survey conducted by the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority, the anemone is the most recognised and loved flower by Israelis. In 2013 anemones were chosen as the national flower of Israel. Though the red anemones can be found across Israel, the flowers in the north are red and white, but in the south, the anemones are only red. This is thought to be because the southern anemones are "less spoilt" and can survive the harsher desert climate. 

After our walk through the forest, we drove the short distance to the Black Arrow Memorial, Andartat Hetz Shahor in Hebrew. It is located in the Gaza Envelope, the populated area of Israel that is within 7 kilometres of the Gaza Strip border.

The Black Arrow Memorial, which overlooks the Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, Jabalia and Gaza city area and is situated only 900 metres from the border with the Gaza Strip, commemorates the battle heritage of the Paratroop Brigade that fought in reprisal operations in response to enemy infiltrations into Israel in the years leading up to the 1956 Sinai Campaign. The memorial contains stone pillars bearing descriptions of the paratroopers retaliatory actions, as well as schemes of battles fought by the corps. Another memorial commemorates the fallen soldiers. Audio explanations in Hebrew and English at the site explain the background to the retaliatory actions and operations in the then Egyptian-held Gaza and the Jordanian-held West Bank.

Some background information. In the 1950s and 1960s Israel suffered loss of lives and property damage from infiltrators from neighbouring countries. The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) conducted military reprisal operations as a deterrent. Between the end of the War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign of 1956, over five hundred Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks and over a thousand others were injured. Commando Unit 101 was established in August 1953 to provide a military response. The unit carried out cross-border patrols and operations for five months until it merged with the 890 Paratroop Battalion. The commander of Unit 101 was Major Ariel Sharon, who later became a general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.

In 1989 a group of 890 Battalion veterans established a lookout point in memory of their commander, Captain Saadia Elkayam, who fell in battle during a reprisal operation in Gaza in February 1955. One year later the Black Arrow Association was founded. Black Arrow was the IDF code name for the Gaza operation in which Elkayam fell. Working together with the regional council in the north-western Negev and KKL-JNF, the Association transformed the Black Arrow site into an impressive memorial that perpetuates the memory and legacy of the fallen paratroopers and tells the story of the reprisal operations.

The Gaza Strip viewed from the Black Arrow Memorial

Close to the memorial is the old Armistice Commission building and a site that commemorates the first water pipeline to the Negev. The Armistice House is a single-storey house with a tiled roof which served as a venue for meetings between Israeli armistice commission delegations and representatives from Egypt when they were negotiating a ceasefire. The building witnessed a number of important events: after Israel's War of Independence it hosted talks on the armistice agreement with Egypt, which was signed in Rhodes; it served as a meeting place where Israelis and Egyptians could discuss infringements of agreements and settle their differences; the captives from the Bat Galim, the ship seized by the Egyptians after it attempted to pass through the Suez Canal in 1954, were returned to this spot; and the bodies of IDF soldiers who fell in the 1956 Sinai Campaign and other military operations were brought here too.

At a bend in the road leading to the Black Arrow Memorial a rusted metal standpipe bearing an explanatory sign commemorates the first water pipeline to the Negev. In 1947 Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, drilled fifteen wells in the area and a pipeline was laid to carry water to the three KKL-JNF outposts and the eleven points of Jewish settlement established in the Negev at the end of the Yom Kippur fast in 1946. The pipeline crossed this site.

Photo credit: Yaakov Shkolnik

* This post has been shared on Sharon's Souvenirs, Wandering Camera, Nature Notes, Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), My Corner of the World and Friday Bliss.