Ginaton

Ginaton is a moshav near Lod in central Israel.[5][2] It is administered by the Hevel Modi'in Regional Council, and the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics identifies it as locality code 863 in the Central District's Ramla subdistrict.[4][1] Sources use both “Ginaton” and “Ginnaton” as English spellings of the locality.

Reference sources record Ginaton as having been founded in 1949 as a moshav in the Coastal Plain's Lod region.[3][6] An Encyclopedia.com table classifies it as affiliated with Tenu'at ha-Moshavim and represented at the time by the Modi'im Regional Council, while later sources list it among the communities of the Hevel Modi'in Regional Council.[3][1] The most extensively documented later episode in its history began with the disputed sale of agricultural land in 1997.

The CBS 2022 locality workbook records a population of 867, including 861 people classified as “Jews and others”—of whom 845 were Jews—and six classified as Arabs.[4] An earlier reference table reported 648 inhabitants on 31 December 2004.[3] A separate CBS alphabetical list gives Ginaton a population figure of 1,055 in a column headed “Population 31.12,” but the extracted table does not identify the reference year, so that figure is not directly comparable with the dated totals.[6]

Ginaton's institutional and economic identity has historically been agricultural. It is classified as a moshav affiliated with Tenu'at ha-Moshavim, and a retrospective account of the 1997 land transaction described approximately 80 farmsteads in the community.[3][2] Ginaton's lawyer later maintained that the moshav continued to possess and cultivate the disputed land while approval for transferring rights remained absent.[2]

Ginaton Cemetery is listed in the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry. Its inventory records 154 burials and 154 photographs, with the data dated 30 December 2023.[7] These are registry totals and do not establish that the inventory includes every burial in the cemetery.

The most extensively documented episode in Ginaton's modern history involves the sale of a large portion of its agricultural land to developer David (Dudi) Appel in 1997. In June of that year, Appel purchased approximately 1,500 dunams from Ginaton for $24.5 million through his real-estate group Migdaley Hazohar.[8] A 2007 retrospective gave the area as 1,400 dunams and confirmed the same price, reporting that the moshav had about 80 farmsteads and that each holder received roughly $300,000 in cash.[2] The land was near Ben Gurion Airport and designated in planning terms as open rural landscape.[8]

The transaction drew opposition from several state bodies. The Israel Land Administration's planning, agricultural, and legal divisions argued that Ginaton, as a temporary lessee, had effectively sold state land without authorization and in breach of its lease conditions.[8] The Jewish Agency, also a party to the lease, opposed the deal.[8] Neither Ginaton nor Appel had reported the transaction to the Administration or submitted the contract for approval; the Administration learned of it several months after it was signed.[8]

The Administration's legal department and the State Prosecutor's Office formed the view that the lease should be cancelled and the land recovered, although no such lawsuit had been filed as of the 2003 report.[8] Ginaton's lawyer later responded that the agreement gave Migdaley Hazohar the right to seek approval for a change of land use and transfer of rights, and that Ginaton continued to hold and cultivate the land while approval remained absent.[2]

Appel's proposed development envisaged thousands of housing units together with commercial and employment space.[8][2] The Central District Planning Committee opposed the construction plan, while Lod Municipality supported it.[8] A February 1998 Globes report said Interior Minister Eli Suissa had recently signed a recommendation to transfer approximately 1,400 dunams of Ginaton agricultural land leased from the Israel Land Administration to Lod's jurisdiction, contrary to a boundaries inquiry committee's recommendation.[9] The report also said Ginaton had previously reduced a request to change the use of 1,000 dunams to employment land, instead seeking a change covering 250 dunams.[9]

A 2002 report described Lod's efforts to establish a college on Ginaton land, following an idea of former Lod mayor Maksim Levy. The Interior Ministry said the proposal had not reached the district planning committee because it was submitted late and was not in a form suitable for review.[10]

A further complication arose when 155 dunams were expropriated for the railway line connecting Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem, with 3.5 million shekels set aside as compensation.[2] The moshav instructed the railway not to transfer the compensation to it, saying it had sold the land to Appel, which left the entitlement to the payment unresolved in the report.[2] The Israel Land Administration said it did not recognize Appel's rights even if he had paid Ginaton. After temporarily suspending services to the moshav, the Administration renewed them in May 2004.[2]

The Ginaton transaction became entangled in wider criminal investigations and political allegations. A September 1997 meeting concerning Appel's agricultural-land projects reportedly included then-Infrastructure Minister Ariel Sharon, Appel, his lawyer Dror Hoter-Ishai, and Israel Land Administration officials. Published accounts alleged that Sharon supported Appel's plans and rebuked and threatened to dismiss Administration director Berti Brodo; the Globes article presented these as reported claims, not established findings.[8] A November 1998 meeting between Appel and Brodo's successor, Avi Dreschler, was described as heated, and Dreschler later reaffirmed the Administration divisions' opposition to the Ginaton plan.[8]

An offshoot of the Greek-island affair concerned a suspicion that Appel had bribed senior figures to secure the rezoning of agricultural land in the Ginaton area for construction, with Sharon alleged to have been among the recipients.[11] The cited account presents this as a suspicion rather than an established finding.[11] Lod mayor Benny Regev, who openly supported the development plan, was also reported to be under investigation on suspicion of receiving a bribe from Appel in connection with a municipal election campaign; this likewise was an allegation rather than a finding stated by the source.[8]

In August 2025, debris from a Houthi ballistic missile struck Ginaton. An Israel Air Force investigation found that the missile carried cluster munitions, the first time during the war that the Houthis had used that category of weapon.[5] The Times of Israel reported that one munition struck the yard of a home and caused slight damage.[12] Magen David Adom accounts cited by The Jerusalem Post similarly described shrapnel landing in a house's backyard. The military investigated its failure to intercept the missile and said the failure was unrelated to the type of warhead.[5][12]