Beit Safafa

Beit Safafa (Arabic بيت صفافا, Hebrew בית צפאפא ) is an Arab residential area south of the Old City of Jerusalem in Palestine.

Geography

Beit Safafa lies in the middle between the Israeli housing developments Pat and Gilo north of Bethlehem. In 2010 it had 5,463 inhabitants in an area of 1,577 dunams.

History

Beit Safafa was in Ottoman tax registers of 1596 as a place in the Nahiya (district) of Al -Quds (Jerusalem) and made ​​part of the Liwa Al -Quds. The village had 41 households, and wheat, rye, olives, vines or fruit trees, and goats or beehives of control were subjected.

At the conclusion of the armistice after the Palestine War in 1949, half of Beit Safafa in no man's land, the neutral zone, and the other was in the Jordanian annexed the West Bank. After Israel's victory in the Six Day War in 1967, quite Beit Safafa the Israeli Jerusalem was annexed. The Arab inhabitants were granted Israeli citizenship, the inhabitants of the eastern part of the western continue to be viewed as Israeli Arabs being internationally recognized as Palestinian and.

In December 2012, has started the construction of an eight-lane, in 1990 planned thoroughfare that cuts the city into two parts. The residents were given no opportunity to raise objections against the construction, especially since they will mainly serve the Jewish settlements south of Jerusalem. The only concession the inhabitants of the construction of a noise barrier was promised, but which is to be eight feet tall and will be available immediately in front of the houses.

Bilingual School

1997 in Beit Safafa hand in hand School for Bilingual Education was established. The school is maintained by the Israeli Ministry of Education and the city of Jerusalem and provides up to a certain age bilingual instruction in Hebrew and Arabic for Jewish and Arab children. In the school year 2007/2008 attended 410 children, half each Arabs and Jews, the school.