In 1948 Latrun and the Latrun crossroads had been a key point in the fight for Jerusalem and to controlling the main road to the city.They were located on an important strategic position, overlooking the highways of Jerusalem-Jaffa and Ramallah-Gaza. In the cease-fire agreement Israel and Jordan signed after the war the area was declared a no man's land. It then became a source of constant confrontations, sometimes culminating in exchanges of fire.

On June 6, 1967, Latrun and the Latrun crossroads fell into the hands of the Israeli military and since have remained under Israeli occupation. With its fall, the shorter road from the Coastal Plain to Jerusalem was immediately reopened and three Arab villages ('Imwas, Yalu, and Beit Nuba) on the northern crest of the hill, invisible from the road, were evacuated. On June 11, shortly after the 1967 war, although there was no armed resistance in the villages, the occupying army forced the inhabitants to move further toward Ramallah, forbidding them to return. Following the expulsion, during which 20 Palestinians were killed, the Israeli army commenced work on demolishing all the homes and eradicating any traces of of the former Palestinian presence in the area: Dynamite was used to blow up the houses and other structures, and bulldozers turned over fields and uprooted trees.

The total area of the villages included over 20,000 dunams(4 dunams = 1 acre). According to the pre-1967 census, the population of the three villages at the time of levelling was 12,000. By now, they and their descendants number around 30,000 people. They are currently scattered between Jordan, Ramallah, Betunia, Jerusalem, and other places in the world. Around 539 homes were destroyed in Yalu, 375 homes in 'Imwas, and another 550 homes in the village of Beit Nuba. Even with all the destruction and transformation, the army was not entirely successful at sweeping aside the history and remnants, for ruins of the old villages can still be seen.

In 1976, with contributions from the Jewish community of Canada, a nature park was dedicated alongside Latrun on the lands of 'Imwas. Within its area, signs now guide the visitor among the springs, old vineyards and almond trees, cisterns, wine-presses, and the excavated ruins of the Hellenistic-Roman city of Emmaus. No sign marks the site, or even the former existence, of 'Imwas. The park exposes its visitors, local tourists and visitors from overseas, to what their hosts would like them to hear, see and experience, and keeps them away from what is silenced and best forgotten. On the land of Yalu, there is now a cattle farm and, on that of Beit Nuba, the Israeli settlement of Mevo-Horon.