Silwad

Silwad ( ar, سلواد) is a Palestinian town located north-east of Ramallah, about 5 km away from the Nablus-Jerusalem highway. Silwad's altitude is about 851 meters above sea level. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the town had a population of 6,123 inhabitants in 2007.

Etymology

Historians have argued the etymology of Silwad's name. Some debated that it is derived from the words ''lisan'' and ''wad'', meaning "tongue of the valley," as the town is surrounded by mountains from all sides, while the town appears as a tongue amidst the mountains. Others claim that "Silwad" comes from the words ''sal'' and ''wad'', meaning "a running valley."

Climate

The climate is Mediterranean-mountainous. Silwad experiences cold and humid winters with several days of snow almost every year with an average annual precipitation of about 750 millimeters (29.5 inches). The summers are dry and mild. This climate is suitable for growing cherries, nectarines, kiwifruit, peaches, grapes and olives.

Location

Silwad, which includes Silwad Camp, is located (horizontally) northeast of Ramallah. It is bordered by Deir Jarir and Et Taiyiba to the east, Al Mazra'a ash Sharqiya and Jaljiliya to the north, Yabrud, Atara and Ein Siniya to the west and Ein Yabrud to the south.

History

Silwad was inhabited in the Mamluk era.Finkelstein et al. 1997, p. 572. Citing Kallai.

Ottoman era

Silwad was inhabited in the early Ottoman era. In the spring of 1697, Henry Maundrell noted two "Arab villages," first "Geeb" and then "Selwid," both on the west side of the road on the way south from Nablus to Jerusalem.Maundrell, 1703, p
63
March 25, 1697 Edward Robinson identified these two villages as Jibiya and Silwad.

In 1838, ''Selwad'' was noted as a Muslim village in the District of ''Beni Murrah,'' north of Jerusalem.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
125
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An Ottoman village list of about 1870 counted 205 houses and a population of 817 in Silwad, though the population count included men, only.

In 1882, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described it as being situated on a hill, and having ancient tombs and a fine spring.

In 1896 the population of Silwad was estimated to be about 1,845 persons.

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Silwad had a population of 1,344, all Muslim,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramallah,
17
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 1631 Muslims and 4 Christians, in a total of 380 houses.Mills, 1932, p
54
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In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,910 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
26
/ref> while the total land area was 14,186 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 12,909 were plantations and irrigable land, 2,496 for cereals, while 72 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

Jordan confiscated lands of Silwad and nearby Ein Yabrud for the construction of a military camp before the Six-Day War.State moves to expand settlement on Palestinian land confiscated by Jordan
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The Jordanian census of 1961 found 3,215 inhabitants.

1967-present

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Silwad has been under Israeli occupation. Only 1.7% of village land belongs to Area A in the Oslo II Accord, while 37.7% is defined as Area B, and the remaining 60.6% is Area C. Silwad town profile (including Silwad camp)
ARIJ, p. 21

The economy of Silwad is based on farming as well as handicrafts.

Land confiscation

The Jordanian buildings formed the initial basis of the Israeli settlement of Ofra founded in 1975. Plans for further expansion of Ofra in this land in 2011 resulted in legal challenges and public dispute. According to ARIJ, Israel has confiscated 988 dunams of land from Silwad for the construction of Ofra.

Silwad villagers have petitioned the High Court to be allowed to farm their traditional lands to which they had been denied access for a decade. They requested the right to access to some 3,100 dunams, a quarter of Silwad's lands of which has been blocked by settlers. Land that has been blocked from cultivation in this way includes property of villagers from Taybeh, Ein Yabrud and Deir Jarir. The IDF blocked Silwad villagers from accessing their farming lands when under escort from peace activists; these lands cannot be entered directly from the village itself but only via the Israeli settlement of Ofra. The incident occurred after they had obtained permission to enter it, under escort from volunteers of Yesh Din.

3 March 2002 incident

A 22-year-old Silwad bricklayer, Thaer Hamad, according to a local report, used his grandfather's WW2 Jordanian army bolt action Mauser and 30 rounds to fire from a nearby hill, at Wadi Haramiya on an Israeli checkpoint, near the settlements of Ofra and Shilo, killing 7 soldiers and three civilian settlers. Avi Issacharoff
'The cumulative impact of sporadic West Bank terror,'
The Times of Israel September 27, 2013. He let one settler woman and her two children pass unharmed. He told one person of his deed, word leaked out and he was eventually arrested in October 2004, put on trial and sentenced to 11 life sentences. Thaer had seen one of his uncle's (Nabil Hammad), killed when he was a child, during the First Intifada, and another shot dead by Israeli forces during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Robi Danelin, the mother of one of the dead soldiers, who said her son had served reluctantly in the West Bank, wrote a letter of reconciliation to Hamad's family. Her letter was rebuffed by Thaer, who brusquely dismissed what he described as an equation between casualties among soldiers in an army of occupation and martyrs killed in the course of their struggle for freedom.Coby Ben-Simho
'Forgiveness of dead IDF soldier's mother leaves Palestinian killer cold,'
Haaretz 29 October 2009. The episode formed the basis for the plot of Najwa Najjar's 2014 film, '' Eyes of a Thief''.

24 October 2014 incident

Orwa Abd al-Wahhab Hammad (14/17), a US citizen who came from New Orleans