'Imwas tour - Report

Throughout Canada Park signs are posted telling the different histories of the area but ignoring the hundreds of years of Palestinian settlement. A little over a year ago the JNF, following intervention of theh High Court of Justice, posted two signs, in Yalu and IMwas, that designate the existence of the villages.

Coverage of the event in Scoop and News First Class [Hebrew only]

On Saturday, June 23, 2007, Zochrot joined the refugees of the village Imwas for a tour of the remains of their village. Imwas, Yalu and Bayt Nuba are three villages that were destroyed during the 1967 war. The JNF founded Canada Park on their remains.

Throughout Canada Park signs are posted telling the different histories of the area but ignoring the hundreds of years of Palestinian settlement. A little over a year ago the JNF, following intervention of theh High Court of Justice, posted two signs, in Yalu and IMwas, that designate the existence of the villages. Since then, the signs have been repeatedly vandalized and removed. On the tour last Saturday new signs were posted in the park designating the sites of the villages.

The refugees showed us where the houses once stood, the wells nearby, the fruit trees and the springs.

Text of the sign: The villages Imwas, Yalu and Bayt Nuba existed in this area until the war in 1967. The village of Imwas was home to 2,000 residents, the village of Yalu to 1,700, and Bayt Nuba to 1,400. With the outbreak of the war the Israeli army expelled the residents and destroyed the houses. Since then they have been living as refugees in Baythunia (West Bank), al-Bireh (West Bank), and Jordan. The Jewish National Fund established here, across the Green Line, “Canada Park” with funds from Jews living in Toronto, Canada. The structure in the Imwas cemetery is considered the shrine of the military commander Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah.