[16][17] Imwas has been identified as the site of ancient Emmaus, where according to the Gospel of Luke (24:13-35), Jesus appeared to a group of his disciples, including Cleopas, after his death and resurrection.

[18] Reduced to a small market town, its importance was recognized by the Emperor Vespasian, who established a fortified camp there in 68 CE to house Legio V Macedonica, populating it with 800 veterans.

[20] Described by Eusebius in his Onomasticon, Jerome is also thought to have referred to the town and the building of a shrine-church therein, when he writes that the Lord "consecrated the house of Cleopas as a church.

"[22] In the 5th century, a second tradition associated with Emmaus emerges in the writings of Sozomen, who mentions a fountain outside the city where Jesus and his disciples bathed their feet, thus imbuing it with curative powers.

[18] After the conquest of Palestine by forces of the Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century, a military camp was established at ʿImwas, which formed part of the newly created administrative district of Jund al-Urdunn.

The governmental framework of the Byzantine rule was preserved, though a commander-in-chief/governor-general was appointed from among the new conquerors to head the government, combining executive, judicial and military roles in his person.

[23] In 639, the Plague of Amwas began and spread from there, killing some 20,000 people, including the commander-in-chief Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah and his successor, Yazid.

[24][25] Studies on the impact of the plague note that it was responsible for a massive depopulation of the countryside, with the consequence that the new Arab rulers, particularly under the subsequent Umayyad Caliphate, were prompted to intervene more directly in the affairs of these areas than they had intended.

In his writings, he notes that the church, which he thought lay over the house of Cleopas, was still intact; he also recalls and describes the miraculous water source mentioned by Sozomen.

[28] Hygeburg of Heidenheim, Bavaria, a nun who visited Palestine in the 8th century, mentions both the church and the fountain in Imwas in her work on The Life of St.

[29] The geographer al-Maqdisi (c. 945-1000) recalls that ʿImwas had been the capital of its province, while noting, "that the population [was] removed therefrom to be nearer to the sea, and more in the plain, on account of the wells.

[18] Conversely, Western sources in the late 12th century identified Biblical Emmaus with another village closer to Jerusalem: Qaryat al-'Inab or Abu Ghosh.

In 1141, Robert of Sinjil leased the "land of Emmaus", which included Imwas and six other villages, to Raymond of Le Puy, the master of the Hospitallers for 500 bezants a year.

Although they do not know anything about its origin, the fellahin have an extraordinary reverence for this sanctuary; they declare that it is often the scene of a supernatural apparition; that of an old man, with a long white beard, mounted on a green mare, and holding in his right hand a pike [karbeh) wherewith he slays his enemies.

Among the most illustrious victims of the disease was one of the companions of Mahomet, Abu 'Abd er Rahman Muadh ben Jabal, who was entrusted by 'Omar with the organisation of the conquered country.

I may add that instead of Deir Fakhur, many Mohammedan writers, for example Beladhory and Yakut, call the place where Mu'adh ben Jabal died and was buried, Ukhuana......

.....We may presume that originally this monument was merely commemorative, and that local tradition has at last wrongly ended in regarding it as the real tomb of this celebrated personage, inferring from his having succumbed to the 'Plague of 'Amwas' that he died and was buried at 'Amwas itself.

However, the mistake of the legend on this point must be a very ancient one, for as early as the twelfth century, Aly el Herewy has the following passage : " One sees at 'Amwas the tombs of a great number of companions of the prophets and of tabis who died of the Plague.

They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 3,600 akçe.

[43] Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau also visited Imwas in the late 19th century and describes a local tradition centered around a bathhouse dating to the Roman era.

The upper part of the structure, which protruded above the ground, was known to locals as "Sheikh Obaid" and was considered to be the burial place of Abu Ubayd who succumbed to the plague in 639.

[53] During the 1948 Palestine War, the village held strategic importance due to its location on the Latrun salient, affording control over the road to Jerusalem.

[55] The town, defended by a few Jordanian and Egyptian units,[citation needed] was overrun and destroyed in June 1967 on the orders of Yitzhak Rabin due to its strategic location, which enabled the route to Jerusalem to be controlled.

Those in the West Bank who tried to get back found the villages surrounded by tanks, and heard that a military order had rescinded the earlier decision, and could only stand by and watch as their houses were razed.

[56] Israel further justified the decision by claiming that its residents had taken part in the Siege of Jerusalem two decades earlier, and that they had been present in an attack by Egyptian commandos on Lod just days before the village was taken.

[56] Central Command orders issued to soldiers at the time described the 1948 failure, and the 1967 success in the following way, by writing of: 'terms of disappointment, terms of a long and painful account, which has now been settled to the last cent.

Elderly people who have nothing more to lose, slowly straggling along.,'[56]In August of that year, villagers were told that they return could pick up their stored harvests with trucks.

"[57]Since 2003, the Israeli NGO Zochrot ('Remember' in Hebrew) has lobbied the Jewish National Fund for permission to post signs designating the Palestinian villages in Canada Park.

[65] The destruction of Imwas and the other Latrun villages of Yalo and Beit Nuba is mentioned by Palestinian novelist Emile Habibi in his famous novel The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist.

[66] Emwas, restoring memories is a recent documentary film in which the filmmaker makes a 3D model of the town using expertise and interviews with people who survived the exodus.