Imwas

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Imwas (Arabic: عِمواس‎) is a former Palestinian village in the West Bank located 12km southeast of the city of Ramla in the Latrun salient. The site is often identified with biblical Emmaus. In 1961 the village had a population of 1,955 mostly Arab Muslims with a minority of 40 Arab Christians. Its total land area consisted of 5,167 dunums of which only 16 was cultivable.[1]

It was captured by the Israeli Defense Forces from Jordanian control during the Six-Day War on June 7, 1967. Along with two neighbouring villages in the Latrun Salient, it was destroyed based on the orders of Yitzhak Rabin due to the corridor's strategic location and control of the route to Jerusalem. Israel said the residents aided the Siege of Jerusalem and the Egyptian commandos in their attack on Lod days before. The residents of the three villages received compensation but were not allowed to return.[2][3][4][5] Today the area of the former village is within the Canada Park.

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  1. ^ Imwas Town Statistics and Facts Hadawi, Sami. Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine (1970), Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center. Government of Palestine for the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry, 1946
  2. ^ Oren, Michael (2002). Six Days of War, pp. 307. ISBN 0-19-515174-7.
  3. ^ Segev, Tom (2006). 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East, Metropolitan Books, pp. 306-309.
  4. ^ Segev, Samuel (1967). A Red Sheet: the Six Day War, pp. 82.
  5. ^ Christopher Mayhew and Michael Adams (2006). Publish It Not: The Middle East Cover Up. Signal Books. ISBN 1-904955-19-3