Beit Aryeh-Ofarim ( he, בֵּית אַרְיֵה-עֳפָרִים) is an
Israeli settlement
Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...
and
local council in the northern
West Bank. It is located north of
Jerusalem and east of Tel Aviv, near the
Palestinian village of
al-Lubban al-Gharbi, 3.8 km kilometers east of the
Green line
Green Line may refer to:
Places Military and political
* Green Line (France), the German occupation line in France during World War II
* Green Line (Israel), the 1949 armistice line established between Israel and its neighbours
** City Line ( ...
. It is situated on the Palestinian side of the
Israeli West Bank barrier, on 8,500 dunams of land. In it had a population of .
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered
illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
History
Established in 1981, Beit Aryeh was recognised as a local council in 1989. In 2004, it merged with Ofarim. Beit Aryeh was named for former
Knesset member
Aryeh Ben-Eliezer, a prominent
Revisionist Zionist leader who was amongst the founders of
Herut.
According to
ARIJ, the land for Beit Aryeh-Ofarim was confiscated by
Israel from two nearby
Palestinian villages:
Aboud and
Al-Lubban al-Gharbi.
In 2011, the Israeli Ministry of Defense signed an agreement with the municipality of Beit Aryeh approving the construction of 100 homes and a bypass road between Beit Aryeh and Ofarim.
In 2020, Beit Aryeh-Ofarim was one of several Israeli settlements that dumped its untreated sewage onto lands of the nearby
Palestinian village of
Deir Ballut.
'Paradise lost': How Israel turned the West Bank into a sewage dump for its settlements
By Shatha Hammad, 21 October 2020, Middle East Eye
Middle East Eye (MEE) is a London-based news website covering events in the Middle East and North Africa. MEE describes itself as an "independently funded online news organization that was founded in April 2014." MEE seeks to be the primary porta ...
Notable residents
* Doron Matalon
* Aleks Tarn
* Neil Druckmann
References
External links
Local council website
Local councils in Israel
Israeli settlements in the West Bank
1981 establishments in the Israeli Military Governorate
Populated places established in 1981
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