Stephen Lendman
[In 1967, the Israeli Army occupied Imwas without resistance. In spite of that, they immediately started evacuating the village forcing its inhabitants to leave to the city of Ramalla under gunpoint. The late Israeli prime minister, Rabin, confessed that he had personally given the order to destroy Imwas (this is documented in a video tape). Ozi Narcis, the commander of the middle region then, also boasted that he had offered for the destruction of Imwas. Imwas, alongside with the rest of latrun villages, yalu and Beit Nuba, were demolished to shorten the distance between Jerusalem and the Coast. Imwas is in the heart of its people generation after generation. It will never go into oblivion as the Israeli leaders dream. THE CRIME OF DESTROYING IMWAS]
On June 6, 1967, when Israeli forces invaded Gaza and the West Bank, on the second day of the so-called Six-Day War (June 5 - 10, 1967), they entered three Palestinian villages in the Latroun salient - Imwas, Yalo and Beit Nouba, forcibly expelling the residents, numbering over 10,000 at the time. By the next day, most were gone while Israel began razing village lands and erasing their memory in an area well-known for its water resources and fertility, located northwest of Jerusalem along the Green Line. One soldier at the time explained that they:
"were told to take up positions around the approaches to the villages in order to prevent those villagers - who had heard the Israeli assurances over the radio that they could return to their homes in peace - from returning to their homes. The order was - shoot over their heads and tell them there is no access to the village," even though Fourth Geneva's Article 49 states:
"Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive." Doing so is a "grave breach," and those responsible are criminally liable.
Forty-two years later, their former homes gone and land expropriated, the survivors remain displaced, unable to return in violation of international law and Article 11 of UN Resolution 194:
"Resolv(ing) that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible." Israel never complied even though its admission to the UN was conditional on accepting this and other relevant UN resolutions.
