Bab al-Shams
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Bab al-Shams ( ar, باب الشمس ': ''Gate of the Sun'') was a Palestinian encampment in the
West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
that housed 250 Palestinian and foreign activists for two nights in January 2013. They erected 25 tents on private Palestinian land in the E1 area where Israel has decided to build more than 3500 housing units. It was in the E1 area Israel intends to fill with houses, and, according to
David Shulman David Shulman (November 12, 1912 – October 30, 2004) was an American lexicographer and cryptographer. He contributed many early usages to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' and is listed amon"Readers and contributors from collections" for the se ...
, impede thereby the construction of a Palestinian state. The site was forcibly evacuated on January 12, when the IDF arrived in the middle of the night, tore down the tents, and also beat and arrested many of the activists.
David Shulman David Shulman (November 12, 1912 – October 30, 2004) was an American lexicographer and cryptographer. He contributed many early usages to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' and is listed amon"Readers and contributors from collections" for the se ...
br>'Hope in Hebron,'
at
New York Review of Books New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
22 March 2013
100 people were arrested. On January 16, the Palestinian Authority created a formal village council for Bab al-Shams. The Israeli government intended to remove the tent outpost, claiming that it was illegal, but the activists received an injunction from the Supreme Court of Israel prohibiting the government from doing so for 6 days. The following day, the occupants were evacuated by the Israeli army, in defiance of the Supreme Court injunction. An Israeli police spokesman said the court allowed for the removal of the protesters even if the tents would stay temporarily. 100 people were arrested.


Comments

Responding to the eviction of the site by Israeli police, the UN secretary General Ban Ki-moon, noted that the protestors had been "largely non-violent", adding that the right to stage peaceful protest should be "fully respected". Ban re-iterated his position that Israel should scrap its plans for development in the E1 area stating that "Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law" and that "any such settlement plans for E1 must be rescinded". After ordering the evacuation of the site, despite an Israeli Supreme court injunction against its demolition, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated that "We will not allow anyone to harm the contiguity between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim". Palestinian leaders also commented on the event. Majid Suweilim, professor of political science at Al Quds University described Bab al Shams as "a direct challenge to the shift of Israeli policy towards the extreme right". He said that the message from the activists was that discussion over negotiations and international pressure had failed and that on the ground there should be a shift towards "democratic, resilient, peaceful popular resistance". The protest mirrors
Israeli settlements 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 ...
tactics, though Palestinian activists say "this land is ours". A ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' report on the event contrasted the "unusual briskness" in which the Palestinian site was evacuated with the Jewish settlement outposts of which there are around 100, that although illegal under Israeli law, are supplied with utilities by the Israeli government and protected by the Israeli army.


Name

The name of the village is inspired by the novel ''Bab Al Shams'' by the Lebanese writer
Elias Khoury Elias Khoury ( ar, إلياس خوري; born 12 July 1948) is a Lebanon, Lebanese novelist, and prominent public intellectual. Accordingly, he has published myriad novels related to literary criticism, which have been translated into several fore ...
who supported the idea.


Culture

Arab Israeli singer
Tamer Nafar Tamer Nafar ( ar, تامر النفار, he, תאמר נפאר; born June 6, 1979) is an Israeli rapper, actor, screenwriter and social activist who identifies as Palestinian. He is the leader and a founding member of DAM, the first Palestini ...
wrote and sang a song about Bab al-Shams.Archived a
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and th
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References

{{coord, 31, 48, 4.00, N, 35, 16, 54.00, E, scale:100000_source:enwiki, display=title, name=Bab al Shams 2013 establishments in the State of Palestine 2013 disestablishments in the State of Palestine 2010s in Jerusalem