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Hatzarim is a kibbutz located about 8 kilometers west of Beersheba in the Negev desert. In 2021, its population was 857 settlers.
The colony is also home to an Israeli airbase, established in the early 1960s and officially inaugurated on October 3, 1966. Hatzarim hosts the Israeli Air Force Museum as well as the Air Force Academy, which has been based there since April 1966. The base was built on the orders of the Israeli Air Force commander Ezer Weizman and was designed by the architect Yitzhak Mor. Its first commander was Yosef Alon.
The base includes four runways ranging from 1,830 to 2,750 meters in length. It was also the site of a major ceremony in 1998 to receive U.S.-made F-15 aircraft, as reported by "Global Security."