Protecting People in Israel's South

• Security Roads and Plantings: KKL-JNF has built special security roads for defense and agriculture, to enable farmers to access their fields and to enable children to get to school safely. KKL-JNF is also planting a network of trees along Gaza's peripheral communities, in order to block Gaza snipers' line of sight in targeting Israeli civilians.
  
• Water: In support of the residents' determination to build the western Negev, KKL-JNF has built a network of dams, reservoirs and water treatment facilities, in order to advance the region economically. KKL-JNF has also prepared land for agriculture and continues to prepare land for new communities.

• Research and Development: KKL-JNF sponsors R&D in the Negev, in order to keep Negev farmers at the forefront of an extremely competitive global produce market
  
• Education: To enable children to study in pleasant green surroundings, KKL-JNF, with the support of its Friends, has developed green schoolyards and carries out a range of educational activities for school children.
  
• Tourism and Recreation: KKL-JNF develops parks, recreational areas, bicycle trails and restores archaeological sites in the area, in order to attract more tourists to the region.

• Bomb shelters: More recently, KKL-JNF has built portable bomb shelters in communities living near the Gaza border and the western Negev.
  
• Respite for families: In especially tense times, KKL-JNF hosts families and students from the south at KKL-JNF Field and Forest Educational Centers in northern and central Israel.
  

The people living in communities bordering on Gaza are constanty exposed to Palestinian artillery and missile attacks, when driving along local roads, to and from their fields, and even within the boundaries of their own communities. In order to remedy the situation, KKL-JNF and the IDF have decided on a policy of planting trees that will serve a triple benefit to residents of the south: these rows of trees will not only block the vision of terrorist firing into Israel, but will also provide pleasant scenery and shade.

The planting program focuses on using fast-growing, water-saving species, adapted to the desert conditions in the area.

The first part of the project, planting to protect communities in the region, has already been completed, with the help of Friends of KKL-JNF worldwide, including Australia, Canada, South Africa and Italy. Gaza border communities protected by the trees include Kerem Shalom, Holit, En HaShelosha, Nirim, Nir Oz, Kissufim, Nahal Oz, Kfar Aza, Mefalsim and Sderot.

The second stage focuses on protecting the travel routes used by residents of the area. Development elements include land reclamation, drainage, plantings (a row of shrubs backed by a row of tall trees) and irrigation. The shrubs will screen the lower areas and the tree canopies, the higher ones.

KKL-JNF is also working with the Israel Honey Council to plant trees that serve as pasture to bees, enhancing honey production in the region.

Read more about life saving trees.

Despite being under fire from the Gaza Strip, communities in Israel's south are determined to live their lives and farm their lands. KKL-JNF, with the support of JNF Australia, is helping them do just that, by building a water treatment facility in the Shaar HaNegev region. The facility which purifies waste water from regional communities such as Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Kibbutz Erez, and Mefalsim, freeing up fresh water sources and providing more water for agriculture.

KKL-JNF work in the Western Negev continues despite the missiles and artillery fire in the area. Our dedicated forest workers tend forests and woodlands and go about their daily tasks almost as usual. But "almost" is the word – their work is regularly interrupted by sirens and "color red" alerts, warning of oncoming missiles. Workers in the field and field offices are exposed to danger and have no available shelters. KKL-JNF has put up three portable, reinforced concrete shelters in its forests and parks in the Western Negev.
The structures serve as offices for local foresters and as shelters when necessary.

In addition, Friends of KKL-JNF in many countries, in a heartwarming demonstration of solidarity, have so far donated 167 portable bomb shelters (and counting), which are being installed in communities throughout southern Israel.

This is in addition to the relief activities in shelters and excursions to quiet regions that friends of KKL-JNF worldwide support.

The 167 new portable shelters will be distributed to the towns of southern Israel and the Gaza periphery in order to give the residents, who have been shut in their homes for over 3 long weeks, the possibility of moving more freely outdoors. The communities that have been given donated portable bomb shelters so far are Ofakim, Bnei Shimon, Gan Yavne, Sderot, Naveh, Bnei Netzarim, Sedot Negev, Eshkol, Hof Ashkelon, Merhavim, Shaar Hanegev and Netivot, and in the Bedouin sector - Beit Lakiya, Segev Shalom, Rahat and Hura.