The Latrun salient is an area of the West Bank that protrudes into Israeli territory. It is surrounded by a strip of territory covering , that has the formal status of a no man's land (NML) between Israel and Palestine. Israel considers the NML a part of its state, while Palestinians regard it as part of the West Bank.
Background
The region consists of hills and an arable plain that historically was owned and cultivated for centuries by Palestinian fellahin. It forms a crucial junction between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Its importance as a strategic transit area was recognized by the military authorities of Mandatory Palestine who built a formidable Tegart fortress on a hilltop site there. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine assigned the region to a future Arab state. Throughout the ensuing 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Jordan's Arab Legion managed to maintain control of the terrain overlooked by the Tegart fort and the Trappist Latrun monastery despite fierce attempts by Israel forces to gain possession. In the immediate aftermath of the war, as a result of the Armistice agreement drawn up the following year, the area was demarcated by two lines reflecting the respective positions of the two armies at the time of the ceasefire, with the land between the lines defined as no man's land, controlled by neither party,. The lands of the village of Dayr Ayyub, conquered and depopulated by Israel in 1948 also fell within this area.
1949–1967
Over the following nineteen year period, both sides endeavoured to wrest control by extending their respective agricultural activities in parts of the contested zone, while recognising the autonomy of the monastery, which lay under the protection and patronage of France. Both parties agreed in an extraparliamentary accord, operative from 7 June 1951, to allow an exception for the Trappist monks, whose land holding extends over 1,000 dunams and who were permitted to harvest their vineyards in no man's land. During this period, Israeli kibbutzim adjacent to the Green Line managed to put some 600 hectares under cultivation, while Palestinian farmers extended their use over 50 hectares, with both sides planting these areas with yearly cereal crops while refraining from planting orchards or olive groves, or building any structures. Talks to expand Israel's borders when Levi Eshkol assumed the Prime Ministership in 1963 led to a variety of plans, one of which, code-named Mozart, envisaged "grabs" of territory like Latrun. Occasionally these encroachments led to open conflict as with the two-day "Tractors war" in October 1965, which led to a formal complaint on 1 November by Jordan before the United Nations. The Jordanians submitted that on 30 October an incursion took place within the no man's land zone consisting of a sortie of 24 tractors under full IDF military escort. Alerted the UN observers requested a complete withdrawal, which only met an Israeli response of sending further reinforcements. Israel, the following day, stated to the UN that both sides had indulged in movements of this kind, and that the problem was to be resolved through the usual Armistice regulatory machinery.