Enforcement activity against the illegal cannabis plantations on IDF training grounds in the Negev was suspended after a patrol was attacked and IDF soldiers nearly lynched. Ever since, hothouses have popped up everywhere. Regavim: “The IDF is capitulating to the criminal syndicates.”
There is a burgeoning industry of illegal cannabis hothouses being established on IDF training grounds. The ongoing war is pushing it out of the news, like so many other symptoms of the black hole of Israeli governance in the Negev. The chaos of criminal activity in southern Israel has been growing exponentially in the past two years and has reached the point where it can no longer be ignored. The IDF recently took action against the tsunami of smuggling, theft, plunder of IDF bases and armories, drugs, and gun-running. As part of this effort to enforce the rule of law, hundreds of illegal cannabis plantations were destroyed.
This past February, as the Swords of Iron War raged, an IDF vehicle engaged in enforcement activity in one of the firing zones was attacked by Bedouin criminals. As a result, the IDF halted all enforcement in the region, and a new wave of lawlessness ensued.
Recently, in the course of ongoing research into issues of governance and land use policy in the Negev, Regavim’s field coordinator discovered a cluster of hothouses located, not coincidentally, only 200 meters away from Highway 211, a major traffic artery connecting Ashalim, Beer Sheva and Yeruham that runs alongside the Bir Hadaj squatters camp. Our coordinator documented the water pipeline that tapped into a Mekorot installation on the highway shoulder, siphoning water for the hothouses, and a solar-powered security camera on one of the nearby trees. Nearby, ground-clearing and planting for another hothouse was underway.
Regavim stated, “It is clear that we’re not looking at the work of teenagers with a backyard garden. This is big business, the work of an organized syndicate that rakes in hundreds of millions of Shekels yearly.”
Ro’i Drucker, Regavim Field Coordinator, said, “This is the Swords of Iron version of the governance void. Since the near-lynch of an IDF patrol by Bedouin marauders, there has been no enforcement whatsoever, and chaos reigns.”
“A short off-road stroll and an amateur drone are all that is needed to uncover the Negev underworld where hundreds of hothouses are stoking the thriving criminal smuggling trade. The authorities must renew enforcement activity and stop the free-for-all in the IDF’s firing zones and throughout the Negev. Simply uprooting the hothouses is not enough. The syndicates that control the industry must be brought to justice to get to the root of the problem; otherwise, every hothouse that is destroyed will be replaced by three new ones.”
