Baituniya
Baituniya , official spelling according to the Beitunia City Office ( Arabic بيتونيا, DMG Baytūnyā ), is a city in the Palestinian Territories in the West Bank that has almost grown together with Ramallah . The city is located 18 kilometers northwest of Jerusalem at an altitude of 860 m. With 23,904 inhabitants (2014), Baituniya is the third largest city in the Governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.
location
The old town center with town hall and water tower is located on a hill. In the east (Baṭn aš-šarq = east belly) the city borders the industrial zone of Ramallah, in the north-west lies the village of Ain Arik. There are even larger agricultural areas in the valley, but the current construction boom is gnawing at them so that they are shrinking every year.
Attractions
While the neighboring cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh have an international flair, there are no cultural or tourist facilities worth mentioning in the purely Muslim Baiytunia apart from an amusement park with larger rides.
administration
The city administration was modernized around 2000 with German development aid.
To the east - right next to the amusement park - is the headquarters of the Palestinian security service with offices and prisons of the secret service. During the first period of autonomy under Jibril ar-Rajub there was intensive cooperation with the Israeli security services and the CIA . On April 3, 2002, during the Second Intifada , however, the Israeli army stormed the facility, partially destroyed it and took away militants who were there.
The central fire station of the civil defense for the West Bank is in the industrial district .
economy
Since all goods deliveries to the northern West Bank go via Baituniya, Palestinian customs clearance for motor vehicles also takes place there. For this reason there are larger interim storage facilities for cars.
The NBC (National Beverage Company) bottling plant for Coca-Cola is located in the industrial area next to some furniture stores .
Ofer
In the southeast is the former Israeli military camp Ofer, which has been used as a tent camp prison from 1988 ( first intifada ) to 1995 (autonomy) and since 2002 because of the second intifada. The tents have now been replaced by tin barracks and the facility was handed over to the civil prison administration in 2006, but the conditions there are still poor. Mostly Palestinian security prisoners without conviction and sentenced to shorter prison terms are accommodated in Ofer. A visit by relatives is only possible with great effort, patience and the Red Cross . The access does not lead via the Beituniya / Ofer crossing, which is just 500 meters away, but via a 7 km detour, which takes three hours with the bus change. The prison is one of the few that is located within the occupied territories and therefore does not violate Article 47 of the Geneva Conventions , according to which prisoners should not be removed from the occupied territory.
Before the Second Intifada, it was possible to drive from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem via the Jewish settlement of Giv'at Seev past Ofer via Baituniya to Ramallah (road 436). From 2000 to 2001 there was an Israeli and a Palestinian checkpoint here. On May 14, 2001, five Palestinian police officers were shot dead by the Israeli army, some of them asleep. Today the Ofer checkpoint is closed to through traffic and instead the truck terminal for the Ramallah district. The goods have to be reloaded back to back between an Israeli and a Palestinian truck.
Settler roads
The Baituniya area is a classic example of the waste of money and land in building settler roads. A large part of the municipal area was lost for this. When the autonomy was introduced, the city remained in Zone B, as the road 436 to the Jewish settlements of Dolev and Talmon ran through the city. A special bypass road 450 to Ain Arik was built around the hill in the west, so that the city could become Zone A in 2000. The Second Intifada made the further course of the road through Ain Arik unsafe, and therefore safe access to the settlements was relocated via the new Road 463 north of Ramallah. At the same time, further bypass roads were created in the Ain Arik / Ein Qinya / Dolev area.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_Rainbow/Documents/ramallah.htm Palestinian Central Statistical Office
- ↑ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmnew/is_200204/ai_kepm312719
- ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/2002/apr/02/news/mn-35807
- ^ National Beverages Company (NBC)
- ↑ Why Humiliation Became a Routine Tactic in Israeli Prisons , Amira Hass in Ha-Aretz on July 13, 2016
- ^ Occupation to expand Megiddo prison , ALRAY on May 7, 2014
- ↑ http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/eed216406b50bf6485256ce10072f637/07b706c6edd2e18085256af00068bc75!OpenDocument ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. UNISPAL report
- ↑ http://reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2005.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/RMOI-73BLFH-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective . Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Los Angeles Times (PDF)
Coordinates: 31 ° 53 ' N , 35 ° 10' E