The West Bank town of Tamun northeast of Nablus is in many respects a typical West bank village. Its 10,000-plus residents are Muslim, divided among two large families — Bani Odeh and Bsharat. A large percentage were compelled to exchange employment in Israel for subsistence agriculture when Israel restricted access to Palestinians from the West Bank as a consequence of the Second Intifada that erupted in 2000. Residents are still trying to claw their way back to a standard of living that dropped by a third from 2000 to 2004.
The town's name is derived from the Arabic word tammen, which means quiet. But life in the village has been anything but quiet in recent days. On Jan. 1, a covert unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered the village to arrest two men linked to Islamic Jihad. One of the two, Murad Ban Odeh, was arrested in an operation that, when exposed, sparked a confrontation between stone-throwing villagers and regular troop reinforcements that raged for hours.
