LATRUN

monastery at Latrun, courtesy, Wikipedia

Latrun is located on a strategic hilltop in the Ayalon Valley. It overlooks the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road and was the site of fierce fighting during the War of Independence in 1948. Between 1948 and 1967, it was under Arab occupation, at the edge of a no man's land between the armistice lines. In the Six Day War in 1967, it was liberated by Israel along with Judea and Samaria and is today, considered a part of the Samaria region.

In the Hebrew Bible, the site that became Latrun was allotted to the tribal territory of Dan, in the southern portion of the territory near the border with Ephraim. In the 2^nd century BCE, Judah Maccabee established his military camp here in preparation for battle with the Seleucid Greeks who occupied the land. The Jewish victory in what was later called the Battle of Emmaus led to greater Jewish autonomy under Hasmonean rule over the next century. Latrun was a Roman base during the first Roman-Jewish War (66-73) and the Bar-Kokhba Rebellion (132-135). Since the Byzantine period (395-636), the site and the surrounding area became abandoned and uncultivated except for an occasional military fort that would be built by a foreign power.

In the 1880s, the Jewish Batato brothers from Jerusalem, purchased a hotel in the area from a Lebanese agent of the Thomas Cook travel company and renamed it the “Maccabee Hotel”. In December 1890, a monastery was established nearby by French, German and Flemish monks of the Trappist Order. Shortly afterward, the monks bought the hotel together with two-hundred hectares of land. Later, they established a vineyard using knowledge gained in France as well as advice from an expert in the employ of Baron Edmond James de Rothschild from the Carmel-Mizrahi Winery in Rishon l’Tzion. During World War I, the monastic community was expelled by the Ottoman Turks and the buildings were pillaged. It was rebuilt in 1926.

Following the 1936–39 Arab riots, the British authorities built at Latrun, a police fort, named Tegart fort after its designer. The site was chosen due to its strategic significance, particularly its dominant position above the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road. Many members of the Yishuv who had resisted the British administration were imprisoned at the site’s detention camp. Moshe Sharett, later Israel's second Prime Minister, and several other members of the Jewish Agency's Executive Committee, were held at Latrun for several months in 1946.

During the War of Independence, the Arab army of Transjordan, from their vantage point at Latrun which was handed over to them by the British, had blocked the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, shelling Israeli motorists below and effectively imposing a siege on the Jews in Jerusalem. On May 24, 1948, ten days after the official Israeli Declaration of Independence and the Arab onslaughts against Israel which followed, the Arab-occupied fort was finally assaulted by the combined forces of Israel's newly created 7th Armored Brigade, and a battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade. The assault, codenamed Operation Bin Nun Alef, was unsuccessful, and the Jews sustained heavy casualties. Ariel Sharon, then a platoon commander, was wounded along with many of his soldiers. On May 31, a second attack against the fort, Operation Bin Nun Bet, also failed, although the outer defenses had been breached. Therefore, to circumvent the blocked road, a makeshift camouflaged road through the seemingly impassable mountains of the Jerusalem Corridor was constructed under the command of David “Mickey” Marcus. This bypassed the main routes overlooked by Latrun and was nicknamed the Burma Road. By June 10, the road was fully operational, and it eventually put an end to the Arab blockade. Meanwhile, the Arabs destroyed the Latrun water pumping station which provided water to Jerusalem. In response, the Israelis built an auxiliary water pipe-line of small capacity along the Burma Road which provided a minimum amount of water. After Operation Danny, Israeli forces anticipated a Jordanian counterattack, possibly from Latrun, but King Abdullah remained within the bounds of the tacit agreement made with the Jewish Agency and kept his troops at Latrun from attacking.  

In the 1949 Armistice Agreements, the fort remained under Jordanian Arab occupation surrounded by a no man's land, and Jordan was not to disrupt Israeli travelers using this road; in practice however, there were constant sniper attacks which were approved of by the United Nations. In the Six-Day War in 1967, Latrun was liberated by Israel and the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road to Jerusalem was re-opened and made safe for travel.  

The village Neve Shalom/Wahat es Salam was the brainchild of Father Bruno Hussar who was born and raised a Jew in Egypt until his conversion to Christianity while studying in France. In 1970, he purchased 120 acres of land from the monastery but it wasn’t until 1978 that the first families moved in on a permanent basis. They were 4 Israeli Jewish families and 1 Arab. Other people followed them including Major Wellesley Aron, grandfather of the Israeli singer David Broza.

Today, in addition to the above mentioned, the Latrun area also contains the park Mini Israel, with scale models of historic buildings around Israel, and the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration (ICSBM), which is adjacent to Yad La-Shiryon Memorial (built on the site of the Tegart Fort). Canada Park is nearby to the east.