The Jewish Agency and the government of Israel plan three new settlement regions in the Negev, Raanon Weitz, cochairman of the World Zionist Organization Settlement Department, told a meeting yesterday of immigrants at Kibbutz Ramat Rahel near Jerusalem. Under the new plan, he said, settlement presently located in the Rafah salient and the Yamit region will be moved to the new region of Pithat Shalom (Peace Opening) in the northwest corner of the Negev, on the Israeli side of the Green Line.
Settlements presently located on the coastal area between Eilat and Sharmel-Sheikh in the Sinai peninsula will be moved to Kikar Sdom (the plain of Sodom), south of the Dead Sea. In addition, three experimental settlements will be established on the Negev’s central plateau, south of Beersheba.
Weitz said that an existing plan for digging a canal from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea is almost operable. The canal will extend from an area near the Gaza Strip, cross the Negev and end with a waterfall south of the Dead Sea. The canal, he said, will also enable the digging of two artificial lakes in the Negev whose functions will include supplying cooling water for nuclear power stations.
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