The history of Silwad town or “the city of resistance and struggle” is considered as old as the revolution of 1936 and its mountains have embraced revolutionaries and intifadists throughout history.
Its history is still renewed by the blood of its martyrs and heroes to date. 21-year-old Malik Ahmed Hamed from Silwad rammed his car on Thursday April 7 2017 into a group of Israeli soldiers killing one of them and wounding another.
Silwad emerged first as a village before it became a town and later a city. For hundreds of years it has been an educational and commercial center for neighboring villages and areas and today it has become the medical hub of the region.
Being located north of Occupied Jerusalem it used to be deemed long time ago in the past one of the Jerusalemite villages but later on it became part of Ramallah province.
The town has a population of nearly 15000 people living on 1850 dunums of land.
A Glimpse of Silwad’s history
Silwad is part and parcel of Palestine’s rich and deep history which tells us that its residents helped the army of Salahuddin al-Ayubbi during its battles and presence in Palestine.
In 1968 the first armed resistance group was formed in Silwad and composed of 12 individuals. Its members managed to strike the Israeli occupation painfully several times prompting the latter to retaliate by demolishing eight homes belonging to families of the fighters.
Prominent figures from Silwad
Khaled Mishaal head of Hamas’s political bureau and prisoner Ibrahim Hamed senior commander of al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas in the West Bank hail from Silwad.
Many families from this town have a known history of sacrifices and struggle against the occupation like the families of Hamed and Hammad.
In 2002 a young man from the family of Hammad called Tha’ir Kayid carried out a heroic sniper attack in Wadi al-Haramiya area of Silwad against Israeli soldiers and settlers killing 11 of them and wounding others by an old rifle with only 24 bullets.
