of 874 "Latins", though the population count included men, only. Martin Hartmann found that Beit Jala had 232 houses. In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Beit Jala as: "A large and flourishing village of white well-built stone houses, on the slope of a steep hill. The water supply is artificial, with a well in the valley below. The population is said by Pere Lievin to amount to 3,000, of whom 420 are Catholics, and the rest Orthodox Greeks. There is a Greek and a Latin church in the village. There are remarkably fine groves of olives round and beneath the village, and the hill is covered with vineyards which belong to the place." In 1896 the population of Beit Jala was estimated to be about 2,880 persons. British Mandate period In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Beit Jala had a population of 3,101; 3,060 Christians and 41 Muslims; where the Christians consisted of 2,628 Orthodox, 358 Roman Catholics, 4 Greek Catholic (Melkites), and 1 each of the Armenian Catholic, Maronite and the Coptic Church. In the 1931 census the population had decreased to 2,731; 2,529 Christians, 198 Muslims, 3 with "no religion" and 1 Jew; in a total of 631 inhabited houses. In the 1945 statistics the population of Beit Jala was 3,710; 200 Muslims and 3,510 Christians, with 13,307 (rural) and 737 (urban) dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 9,860 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 1,064 for cereals, while 737 dunams were built-up (urban) land. Jordanian period In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Beit Jala came under Jordanian rule. The Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) began relief operations for refugees in the West Bank in 1950. They also worked with Palestinians who had retained their houses and so were not technically refugees, but who had lost their land or means of making a living because of the war. As part of this relief, the MCC founded a school in Beit Jala which was still in operation as of 1979. In 1952, an Israel Defense Forces reprisal raid in Beit Jala killed seven civilians; one man, two women and three children. A complaint was lodged that Israel had violated the General Armistice agreement. The United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation issued a condemnation of Israel for breaching the agreement. In 1961, the population of