Awarta

Awarta was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal, part of Nablus Sanjak. It had a population of 50 households, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and/or beehives, in addition to for a press for olives or grapes and occasional revenues; a total of 11,194 akçe.[9]

In 1838, Edward Robinson noted the village besides Rujeib and Odela,[10] part of the el-Beitawy district, east of Nablus.[11]

In 1870 Victor Guérin visited the village, and noted that in the upper part there was a mosque, called Djama Mansour, containing a gigantic whitewashed tomb.[12] In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described it as "a village, on the slopes east of the plain, with springs to the east, and olive-groves. It is built of adobe and stone, and is of moderate size."[13]

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Awarta had a population of 938 Muslims,[14] increasing at the time of the 1931 census to 1,019, still all Muslim, in 257 houses.[15]

In the 1945 statistics Awarta together with Odala had a population of 1,470, all Muslims,[16] with 16,106 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[17] Of this, 30 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 9,406 used for cereals,[18] while 132 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[19]

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Awarta came under Jordanian rule. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950.

In 1961, the population of Awarta was 2,069.[20]

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Awarta has been under Israeli occupation. The Palestinian National Authority agreed to ensure free access to these sites as specified in the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[21]

According to Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem, much of the land of Awarta has been confiscated by the Israelis, including 2,450 dunums of land which was used for construction of the Israeli settlement of Itamar.[22]

There are frequent reports of violence by Israeli settlers towards Palestinian farmers during the annual olive harvest. However, from 2007, when a group of Israeli activists — Rabbis for Human Rights — agreed to protect the farmers during the harvest, attacks temporarily came to an end.[23] According to Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors West Bank settlements, on 10 July 2013 Israelis from the Itamar settlement used chainsaws to cut down thousands of the villagers' olive trees in a 600-dunam olive grove maintained by 25 Awarta families in an area north of their town.[24] Sami, Iyad N’am ‘Awwad, a local teacher, stated that the affected area has been isolated from the rest of the village by the erection of two Itamar security fences.[25]

In 2010, two cousins from Awarta, Salah Qawariq, 18, and Muhammad Qawariq, 19, were killed by an Israeli (IDF) soldier who emptied his magazine, shooting them 29 times. The autopsies reveal that both had been shot at close range.[26] Palestinian sources claim the teenagers were executed by Israeli soldiers, while out working their land. Israeli accounts varied over time: they were on their land when Avri Ran noted them on the property and forced them to sit down, called up a settlement security coordinator, who in turn called the IDF in. After two hours of communications between the soldiers and headquarters, the men were shot: on interrogation the other soldiers said they had not witnessed the shooting. The IDF announced that a terrorist attempt involving an attempt to attack soldiers with a pitchfork had been foiled. This was subsequently revised to an assault with a bottle and a syringe. It emerged later that they had not got IDF clearance to work their land.[27][28]

Israeli soldiers patrolling Awarta on the day after the Itamar attack

Awarta made international headlines after the Itamar attack of 11 March 2011, when five members of the same family were killed in the nearby Israeli settlement of Itamar. Awarta was subsequently declared a closed military zone, due to suspicions that the perpetrators were residents of the village.[29] According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Palestinian sources reported that Israeli military forces took all of Awarta's men in for questioning, including two officers of the Palestinian security forces, making "wholesale arrests".[30] As a reaction to the attack, masked Israeli settlers infiltrated the village and threw stones at homes, before being dispersed by the Israel Defense Forces.[31] Two young Awarta residents, Hakim Maazan Niad Awad and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad were arrested on 5 and 10 April 2011 and confessed to the killings.[32] The village council chief condemned the murder, however he voiced doubts over the Israeli findings and claimed that the two suspects confessed under duress.[33] The two were sentenced to five consecutive life sentences and another five and seven years respectively in prison.[34][35]