"why was it bought by anyone? WHo would buy worthless land?"
,.,.,
Well there's a silly question! Haven't you been listening?

TO DEVELOP & RELEASE ITS POTENTIAL FOR FERTILITY FOR USE AS AGRICULTURAL LAND BY DILIGENT LABOUR AND THE USE OF AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGY, so that it was no longer worthless. That is what happened to land in Negev, Golan ... So with real dog-in-mangerdom, some of those who had let it degenerate to that state would now like to get it back ~~ presumably to let it go back to the state it was in before: see those informative aerial maps posted above showing the meeting point of lands around Gaza currently being farmed by the Israelis, Egyptians, Palestinians. Someone asked truculently whether that was supposed to show that Arabs couldn't use land, then. No comment. Just look at the evidence for yourself, mg.

~M~