Shemurat HaMasreq, Nature reserve in Jerusalem District, Israel.

Shemurat HaMasreq is a nature reserve on a hill next to Moshav Beit Meir in the Jerusalem hills, named for the Jerusalem pines on its summit that look from afar like a comb stuck in the hilltop. Its chalk dome of the Motza formation weathers into rendzina soil, on which grow evergreen maquis trees such as common oak and pistacia, with climbing plants like ivy. A few specimens of the rare hybrid pistacia also grow here.

The ridge was the site of combat during Israel's 1948 War of Independence, when Palmach and Haganah fighters took the peak, marked as position 17, and the nearby village of Beit Mahsir in Operation Maccabi. A sign in the reserve describes the fighting. In 1956, during the Sinai War, residents of Moshav Beit Meir dug defence trenches and built concrete bunkers around the summit and the tomb of Sheikh Ahmad al-Ajami.

The name comes from the Jerusalem pines on the summit, which from a distance look like a hair comb; members of a Palmach training group at Givat Brenner, who toured the area, probably coined it. On the summit stands the tomb of Sheikh Ahmad al-Ajami, described by Vilnay as the keeper of Muhammad's book, a legend with no basis; residents of the nearby village of Beit Mahsir were buried around it, and their graves can still be traced across the reserve.

The reserve sits next to Moshav Beit Meir in the Jerusalem hills, and a sign inside it describes the battles of Operation Maccabi. On the northern side you can still make out the remains of defence trenches, and concrete bunkers stand on the summit near Sheikh Ahmed al-Ajami's tomb, built by Beit Meir residents ahead of the 1956 Sinai War.

The peak of the reserve, where the Sheikh's tomb stands, was marked as position 17 on Palmach and Haganah battle maps during the 1948 war. Harel Brigade took it from the nearby village of Beit Mahsir in Operation Maccabi, and a sign in the reserve describes the fighting.