Turmus Ayya

Turmus Ayya (Arabic: ترمسعيّا) is a Palestinian town located in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the West Bank, in Palestine.

[4][5] During the Ottman era (1500 CE), the Palestinain village was registered under the name Turmus Ayya (Arabic: ترمسعيا) in historical survey records.

Michael Avi-Yonah and Shemuel Yeivin, noting phonetic similarities, have proposed that the name "Turmus" may have derived from the Latin word thermae, a public hot bath.

Turmus Ayya's climate is similar to that of the central West Bank, which is rainy in the winter, and hot and humid in the summer.

[11] A little northeast of Turmus Ayya is Khirbet Ras ad-Deir/Deir el-Fikia, believed to be the Crusader village of Dere.

French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1870 and found ancient cisterns, a broken lintel with a garland carved upon it and the fragments of a column.

[20][21] In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine Turmus Aya was described as "a village on a low knoll, in a fertile plain, with a spring to the south.

[32] In December 2014, the town was the site of the death of Palestinian official Ziad Abu Ein during a protest against Israeli occupation.

[4][5] According to B'tselem, in the six first months of 2023, Turmus Ayya was attacked ten times by Israeli settlers.

[40] Attacks continued throughout July 2024, with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reporting that settlers had burned down farmhouses and generators on four consecutive days.

[3] Many of the villagers have moved to the Americas to seek economic opportunity, but they return regularly in order to keep their Palestinian ID.

Turmus Ayya in 2023
Roman sarcophagus , 3rd century, discovered at Turmus Ayya, now at Rockefeller Museum , Jerusalem [ 8 ] [ 9 ]
Grave dated to 1838
Home transformed into millitary barracks overlooking school.
Burnt house and car from settlers attack in Turmus Ayya, June 23
Hundreds of Israeli settler attack homes and burn property accompanied by soldiers in Turmusaya