Gitit () is an

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

in the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, organized as a

moshav A moshav (, plural ', "settlement, village") is a type of Israeli village or town or Jewish settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 and 1 ...

.Gitit
Bik'at HaYarden Regional Council Located in the Jordan Valley with an area of , it falls under the jurisdiction of Bik'at HaYarden Regional Council. In it had a population of . The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.

History

According to ARIJ,

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

confiscated 514

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s of land from the

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

village of Al-Jiftlik in order to construct Gitit in addition to 1,085 dunums from Aqraba for Gitit and Itamar. After the decision to establish a settlement had been made, land was seized from Aqraba first by declaring a closed military area. When the Palestinian owners refused to vacate the area, their tools were sabotaged. Finally, a crop-duster was used to spray the area with poison, in a joint operation approved by the government of

Golda Meir Golda Meir (; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978) was the prime minister of Israel, serving from 1969 to 1974. She was Israel's first and only female head of government. Born into a Jewish family in Kyiv, Kiev, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) ...

in April 1972, involving the IDF and the

Jewish Agency The Jewish Agency for Israel (), formerly known as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). As an ...

. The village was then established in 1972 as a

Nahal settlement Nahal settlements () were Israeli settlements established by Israeli soldiers of Nahal in both Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. Supporting the growth and expansion of Israeli Jews was once the main focus of Nahal troops of the Israe ...

. It is named for a musical instrument mentioned in the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

with a similar shape as the area:Bitan, Hanna: 1948-1998: Fifty Years of 'Hityashvut': Atlas of Names of Settlements in Israel, Jerusalem 1999, Carta, p.19, (Hebrew) f.e. Psalm 8:1. In 1975 it became a civilian community affiliated with Mishkei Herut Beitar. In 1978 it became a

moshav shitufi A moshav shitufi (, lit. ''collective moshav'', pl. ''moshavim shitufiim'') is a type of cooperative State of Israel, Israeli village, whose organizational principles place it between the kibbutz and the moshav on the scale of cooperation. Ideolo ...

, but later reverted to moshav ovdim status.

References

External links

Village website
* Primary documents on the establishment of Gitit a
Akevot
{{Bik'at HaYarden Regional Council Moshavim Nahal settlements Israeli settlements in the West Bank Populated places established in 1972 1972 establishments in the Israeli Military Governorate