Nitzan is a religiously observant

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 communal settlement

Communal settlement (Israel)

A community settlement is a type of town in Israel. While in an ordinary town anyone may buy property, in a community settlement the town's residents, who are organized in a cooperative, can veto a sale of a house or a business to an undesirable buyer....

 in southern Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. Located among the Nitzanim sand dunes

Dune

In physical geography, a dune is a hill of sand built by wind. Dunes occur in different forms and sizes, formed by interaction with the wind. Most kinds of dunes are longer on the windward side where the sand is pushed up the dune and have a shorter "slip face" in the lee of the wind...

 north of Ashkelon

Ashkelon

Ashkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council

Hof Ashkelon Regional Council

Hof Ashkelon Regional Council is a regional council in the Southern District of Israel.The council is bordered to the north by Be'er Tuvia Regional Council, to the east by the Be'er Tuvia, Lakhish, Shafir and Yoav Regional Councils, to the south by Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council and the Gaza...

. In 2007 it had a population of 3,000. The town has a large concentration of Bnei Menashe

Bnei Menashe

The Bnei Menashe are a group of more than 9,000 people from India's North-Eastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. The claim appeared after a Pentecostalist dreamt in 1951 that his people's pre-Christian religion was Judaism and that...

 Jews (10 -20% of the population), from the India/Myanmar Border Region of India.

History

The first settlement on Nitzan's current grounds was the kibbutz of Nitzanim in 1943. The kibbutz was established after the Jewish National Fund

Jewish National Fund

The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation...

 purchased a 400 acres (1.6 km²) plot of land and a large house known as the "mansion" in 1942. The first residents were immigrants

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

, some of whom were Holocaust survivors

Sh'erit ha-Pletah

Sh'erit ha-Pletah is a biblical term used by Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust to refer to themselves and the communities they formed following their liberation in the spring of 1945....

. It later absorbed more immigrants from Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

. The kibbutz was conquered by Egypt

Battle of Nitzanim

The Battle of Nitzanim was a battle fought between the Israel Defense Forces and the Egyptian Army in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, on June 7, 1948...

 during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, but recaptured by Israel towards the end of the conflict. However, the kibbutz was re-established four miles to the south. In 2006 the kibutz had a population of 343.

By 1995 Nitzan had a population of 105. It experienced rapid expansion in the mid-2000s after being selected to temporarily house a large group of families evacuated from Gush Katif

Gush Katif

Gush Katif was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip. Gush Katif was specifically mentioned by Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who fell victim to an assassin in 1995, as essential to Israel's security border. In August 2005, the Israeli army moved the 8,600...

 as part of disengagement plan

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan , also known as the "Disengagement plan", "Gaza expulsion plan", and "Hitnatkut", was a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005, to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from...

. 500 temporary caravillas were constructed on the eastern end of Nitzan (an area which became known as Nitzan Bet), and 250 more were ordered by the Israeli Government

Cabinet of Israel

The Cabinet of Israel is a formal body composed of government officials called ministers, chosen and led by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister must appoint members based on the distribution of votes to political parties during legislative elections, and its composition must be approved by a...

. According to government plans, a school and sports area will eventually be constructed.

Several environmental organisations objected to the new construction, which increased Nitzan's area by four-and-a-half times, fearing damage to the fragile sand dune ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

. The neighbourhood has also been the target of criticism from the settlers, as well as Israeli human-rights groups, citing a lack of adequate housing and facilities. They argue that governmental negligence resulted in a housing shortage which forced large families to separate into multiple caravillas, and that basic infrastructure like a youth area, nursery, and synagogue were absent.

Nitzanim Youth Village

Nitzanim Youth Village (Hebrew: כפר הנוער ניצנים‎, Kfar HaNoar Nitzanim) was a youth village in southern Israel. Located in the Nitzanim dunes, it fell under the jurisdiction of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council.

The village was founded in 1949 on the original site of kibbutz Nitzanim, which had moved to a new site four kilometres south following its recapture from the Egyptian army by Israeli forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (See also: Battle of Nitzanim). The village closed in 1990.

A boarding school was opened on the site in the 1990s, and at the end of the 1990s the religious communal settlement of Nitzan was founded on its land.