History of the ToN

About Us: Rooted in the Land Since 1916

The Tent of Nations stands on a 100-acre (about 400 dunams) family farm named Daher’s Vineyard, located about six miles (about 10 km) southwest of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The land was purchased in 1916 by the Nassar family, and the family holds original registrations and deed documents dating from the Ottoman era, through the British Mandate (registration in 1924-25), and Jordanian administration. 

Despite these registers, in 1991, the Israeli authorities declared the Nassar family farm (and surrounding lands) as “state land”. Since then, the family has engaged in protracted legal proceedings in the Israeli Military courts, the Appeals Committee, and the Israeli Supreme Court to re-register and protect their land. 

The farm is surrounded on all sides by illegal, under international law, Israeli settlements, including those in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, and has faced repeated settlement-road encroachments, bulldozing and burning of orchards, and access restrictions. In the Spring of 2024, the most recent outpost began with containers. Now, in the Fall of 2025, there are around five families in fully fitted homes, with continued construction of new builds taking place daily. This outpost is merely feet from the farm’s fence. 

Since the Nassar family began the re-registration process for their land, the case has been repeatedly delayed and deferred by the Israeli authorities. In 2019, the family finally received confirmation that their application was complete, but progress stalled again. A meeting of the Israeli Registration Committee in February 2021 was meant to determine the next steps; since then, no official results have been released.

Between 2021 and early 2023, a series of hearings were scheduled and repeatedly postponed — from May 2021 through January 2023 — as the state’s representatives failed to appear or requested more time. The family’s attorney has filed multiple appeals to compel a decision, yet the case continues to cycle between committees and courts without resolution.

During these years of delay, the Tent of Nations has faced repeated attacks and destruction.

• May 21, 2021: over 1,000 trees — including hundreds of olive trees — were burned.

• June 9, 2021: military bulldozers entered the property and uprooted 50 olive trees.

• January 2022: 50 mature trees were destroyed in another act of vandalism.

• January 28, 2022: Two of the Nassar brothers were attacked and seriously injured by masked men.

• March 2024: Road cuts off 15 acres of ToN land. 
• April 17, 2024: 75 apple trees destroyed & soil removed
• April 2024: Road cutting through ToN land 
• August 2025: 12 houses built in the outpost

The total damages exceed €150,000. No one has been held accountable.

Meanwhile, movement to and from the farm has become severely restricted. What was once an easy fifteen-minute trip along Route 60 to Bethlehem or Hebron — where volunteers could travel freely — now takes forty minutes or more through the villages of Nahalin and Husan. Since the war, five military gates have been installed along this route, allowing entire Palestinian communities to be sealed off without warning. These closures, combined with flying checkpoints, new surveillance infrastructure, and illegal roads bulldozed across the family’s property, deepen the isolation of the Tent of Nations and the daily hardship of those who farm there.

Despite all of this, the Nassars continue their work with steadfast nonviolence and faith, living their message every day:
“We refuse to be enemies.”