The Israeli High court ruled that 522 dunams (129 acres) of disputed land near Kibbutz Rosh Tzurim in Gush Etzion does in fact belong to the Kibbutz and a subsidiary organization of the Jewish National Fund (JNF-KKL), according to a TPS report.
Arabs were claiming that the land next to the Kibbutz belonged to them.
Much of the land in the Gush Etzion region was purchased by individual Jews, Jewish organizations and the JNF in the early 1900s from local Arabs.
The JNF purchased the land in question in 1944 through a JNF subsidiary organization called Himnota. The Arab family who sold the land emigrated to South America.
In 2016, Palestinian Authority Arabs provided fraudulent ownership documents to the courts, which were rejected.
Justices Fogelman, Mazuz and Baron were the judges for this case.
History of Gush Etzion
In 1922, the village of nearby Migdal Eder was established by Yemenite Jews, but the Jews were forced out by the Arab riots and massacres of 1929. A gentleman named Mr. Holtzman purchased additional lands in the area in 1935, but once again, the Arabs chased out the rightful Jewish landowners.
The process was repeated in 1943 with the establishment of Kfar Etzion, and then 1945 with the establishment of Masuot Yitzchak, and once again with Ein Tzurim in 1946.
With the start of the establishment of the state of Israel, the Arabs besieged the Gush Etzion area, murdering 157 Jews in the process, and emptying out the Gush Etzion region of all the rightful Jewish landowners.
Soon after Israel liberated the Gush Etzion area from Jordan in 1967, Jews began to return to the lands they had legally purchased in the early 1900s, and today Gush Etzion is a thriving region, just south of Jerusalem.
Rosh Tzurim is known for its annual cherry-picking festivals.
This past summer, Arab terrorists burned down part of the cherry tree orchards.
