Ga'aton River



The Ga'aton Stream (נחל הגעתון, Nahal HaGa'aton; وادي المفشوج, Wadi al-Mafshukh) is a small river in the Northern District of Israel. It passes through the town of Nahariya before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. The river runs through the main street of Nahariya, a city that takes its name from the river (nahar means river in Hebrew).

Consumption
Historically, the Ga'aton stream was the fourth in flow among the streams of Israel that flow into the Mediterranean Sea, with an average flow (at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea) of 24 cubic meters per minute and an annual water volume of over 10 million cubic meters. The extensive irrigation in the Galilean coastal plain, which resulted in the almost complete drying up of Nahal Haga'aton.

Today, all the springs in the Hagaton basin are occupied (about three million cubic meters a year are pumped from the Ashchar springs and about five million cubic meters are pumped from the Kabri springs). As a result, the river bed is almost completely dry and it only contains a significant flow in the winter months.

Drying up of the stream resulted in significant ecological damage to the humid habitats that depended on it, and as a result harm to the amount of species living in the basin and their richness. Over 50% of the land surfaces of the Haga'aton basin are occupied or used in one way or another by man. At the top of the basin are the cities of Ma'alot Tarshiha and Me'ona and at the bottom of the basin, the city of Nahariya. To the east of the city of Nahariya, and next to it, there is intensive agricultural activity that includes fields, plantations and orchards, water reservoirs and livestock. Today, most of the water is captured by pumps, and is used for the benefit of the settlements in the area.

Scattered along the river are evidences of human activity throughout history, including many evidences especially of agriculture that used the water of the river for irrigation and energy production for Gristmill.

Localities and sites in the Haga'aton basin
Two large cities lie at the ends of the river basin: the flat city of Nahariya (which includes Haga'aton Boulevards named after the river that flows through it) in the west and the mountainous city of Ma'alot Tarshiha in the east. Between them are the moshavs: Ben Ami, Nativ Hashayara, Ein Ya'akov and Me'ona, and the kibbutzim: Kabri, Ga'aton and Yehiam. On the edge of the river basin are also the community settlement Neve Ziv and the local council Kfar Vradim and two villages: Mi'ilya and Sheikh Danun.

Many declared antiquities sites are found mainly along the Lower Ga'aton and Middle Ga'aton streams, the most important of which are: Yeh'iam Fortress, Ga'aton ruins (the center of an agricultural settlement that was established during the Kingdom of Israel and existed until the War of Independence. Near Kibbutz Kabri is Khirbat Twiri and contains remains from the Amorite period), Kabri Springs Complex and Tel Kabri. Later historical sites are also found within the river basin: the British water reservoir at Mount Agar, a bunker of the Kaukji Salvation Army at Mount Betah, and a monument commemorating the victims of the Yahiam convoy.

History Archeology and settlement
From a settlement point of view, the basin can be divided into two sub-regions: the coastal region with the city of Kabri, a large city with international trade connections, and the mountainous and forested region which is difficult to access. The main trade routes bypass the mountainous area and therefore it is relatively isolated - but at the same time also protected. However, it is not far from main roads on a regional and even intercontinental scale, such as the Roman roads Acre-Tyre and Acre-Zippori-Tiberias. The main hill in this area is Tel Mi'ilya. The eastern part of the Haga'aton basin formed one of the borders between the Asher and Naphtali tribal estates and in later times served as a buffer between the pagan nations and the Hasmonean kingdom.

The Haga'aton Basin area has a number of unique archaeological features: the plateau pools - the plateau mills to which the water reaches from below and not from above. The mill is located above a spring whose underground source of water is higher than the source of it emergence on the surface. The outlet closes in the pool, and the water rises according to the law of the Communicating vessels and falls into a chimney. All 26 known lifting pools in the world are in the Land of Israel, with most of them in the Haga'aton basin. Some of the Haga'aton mills were also used during the harvest season as mills - mills designed to extract and optimize Olive oil production.

In Ottoman times, the river was known as Nahr Mefshukh.

The source of this river, formerly known as "the fountain-head of the waters of Ǧiyāto" (ראש מי גיאתו), and which issued from two natural springs: ʻain a-tinah and ʻain al-ʻanqalit, is mentioned in late 2nd century rabbinic writings (Sifrei on Deuteronomy 11:24), and in the Mosaic of Rehob.