Beit Netofa Valley
The Beit Netofa Valley (Hebrew: בקעת בית נטופה) is a valley in the Lower Galilee region of Israel, midway between Tiberias and Haifa. Covering 46 km2, it is the largest valley in the mountainous part of the Galilee and one of the largest in the southern Levant. The name Beit Netofa Valley first appears in the Mishna and later in medieval rabbinical literature, receiving its name from the Roman-era Jewish settlement of Beth Netofa which stood at its northeastern edge. The valley's Arabic name is Sahl ˀal-Baṭūf and as such appears as Vallée Battof in crusader documents.
The valley is 16 km long and on average 3 km wide, a graben formed by two parallel east-west trending faults running to its north and south. It lies between two horsts forming the Yodfat range to the north and the Tur'an range to the south, basically separating the Heart of Galilee from Nazareth area. Limestone hills to the east indicate the valley was also shaped by karstic processes. Long and narrow and ringed by steep hills, the valley soil is fatty clay relatively impermeable to water, leading to seasonal winter flooding, a phenomenon already described in the 14th century by medieval Arab geographer Al-Dimashqi.
On February 7, 1950, a meteorological station in the valley recorded the lowest temperature ever recorded in Israel, -13.7 °C.
Because the bottom of the valley is set under water by the winter rains, and due to the high agricultural value of the valley, villages have only been established at the margins of the valley, where the terrain starts rising. These are, from west to east, Kibbutz Hanaton, Kafr Manda, Rumana, Uzeir, Bu'eine Nujeidat and Eilabun. The Jewish religious communal settlement of Mitzpe Netofa is overlooking the valley from Mount Tur'an, which separates the Beit Netofa and Tur'an valleys.
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