Many of the villagers in Beit Surik came from a village in what is now recognised as Israel called Beit Shanna. One of about 500 destroyed or "forgotten villages" they are a powerful reminder of the ethnic cleansing that took place to give birth to the land of Israel.

In April 2007 one of our supporters visiting Beit Surik, walked with a villager with a pass for Israel (he works for an American aid organisation) into a nearby Jewish settlement / suburb of Jerusalem, where we met an Israeli Peace Now activist who has helped the family with a Human Rights issue. She was kind enough to drive us to the village of Beit Shanna, where we were lucky enough to meet an Arab security guard who took us around in his car (the kibbutz is fenced in). We took many photographs and video pictures and successfully found all the points of interest raised by older villagers who remember fleeing from this town in 1948. A showing of the video and photographs was held later in the week. One old man angrily stormed out when he saw that the land was unused, and that there was no reason why they could not return.

The evening, a moving experience, ended with the men going off to the Mosque to pray.

More about Beit Shanna (we supplied the photos) - www.palestineremembered.com/al-Ramla/Bayt-Shanna/index.html