Har Homa |
Wiki |
Coordinates: 31°43′N 35°13′E / 31.717°N 35.217°E / 31.717; 35.217
Har Homa, (Homat Shmuel),(Hebrew: הר חומה, trans: Wall Mountain; Arabic: جبل أبو غنيم, translit Jabal Abu Ghneim) is a neighborhood located in southeastern Jerusalem, which lies opposite the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Sahour. Because it was built on land annexed by the Jerusalem municipality from the West Bank after the 1967 Six-Day War it is generally described as being an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, although Israel disputes this. The newest of the city's developments, its construction in the 1990s within the extended municipal boundaries that had been declared illegal by the United Nations was met with international controversy. The neighborhood is now officially known as 'Homat Shmuel', named after Shmuel Meir, who was killed in a car accident in 1998. He was dedicated to advancing its development while being a deputy mayor of Jerusalem under Ehud Olmert.
In the 1940s a Jewish group purchased 130 dunams (32 acres) of land on the hill between Jerusalem and Bethlehem known in Arabic as Jabal Abu Ghneim, and the Jewish National Fund then planted a forest on the site.