Dura, Hebron

Dura ( ar, دورا) is a Palestinian city located eleven kilometers southwest of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of over 28,268 in 2007. The current mayor is Ahmad Salhoub.

In 1517, the village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Syria. After the British Mandate, in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Dura came under Jordanian rule. Dura was established as a municipality on January 1, 1967, five months before it came under Israeli occupation after the Six-Day War. Since 1995, it has been governed by the Palestinian National Authority, as part of Area A of the West Bank and as part of the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine.

Etymology

The present-day name of ''Dura'' has been identified with ancient ''Adoraim'' or the ''Adora'' of 1 Macc.13.20Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, p
4
/ref> The village was originally built on two hills: Dura al-‘Amaira and Dura al-Arjan possibly reflecting dual grammatical number of ''Adoraim'' name, which could also be a double village during antiquity.Sharon, 2013, p
86
/ref>

History

Ancient period

Dura is an ancient place, where old cisterns and fragments of mosaics have been found. The settlement was mentioned in the Amarna letters as early as 14th century BC. and in the Anastasi Papyrus.

Classical period

Following the Alexander the Great's conquest, the village population of the ancient Palestine preserved their traditional way of life, however Jewish urban centers such as Adoraim exhibited a degree of hellenization. The settlement is mentioned in the Zenon Papyri in 259 BC as a "fortress city". In Adora, Simon Maccabeus stopped the advancing Diodotus Tryphon army in 142 BC. According to Josephus, John Hyrcanus captured the city after the death of Antiochus VII in 129 BC. The city inhabitants, who were alleged to have been of Esau's progeny (Idumeans), were forced to convert to Judaism during the reign of Hyrcanus, on the condition that they be allowed to remain in the country. In 63 BC Pompey conquered Judea. Adora became a chief place of Idumaea, Hebron no longer being important. The city is included in the list of cities rebuilt by the Roman consul Aulus Gabinius.KANAEL, B. “The Partition of Judea by Gabinius.” Israel Exploration Journal, vol. 7, no. 2, 1957, pp. 98–106. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27924692. Accessed 20 July 2020. It may have been the administrative center of the district of eastern Idumaea established by Gabinius, though other possibilities have been suggested.

A 1st century CE mansion, inhabited till First Jewish–Roman War (66-74 CE), was partially excavated near Dura, at Hirbet Moraq. The house, center of the estate, included bath and consistent of interior rooms surrounded by open courtyard and fronted by colonnades. According to inscription the house belonged to a Jewish family. This distinctive "introverted" house plan design developed in the area during the Hellenistic period. The city retained Jewish character until at least the end of the Bar Kokhba war (135 CE)

Early Muslim Period

Mukaddasi, writing around 985 CE, noted that Palestine was famous for its vineyards and a type of raisin called ''Dūrī'', said to be from Dura.Mukaddasi, 1896, p
69
(note 3).

Ottoman period

In 1517, the village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine. In 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the ''Nahiya'' of Khalil of the '' Liwa'' of Quds. It had a population of 49 Muslim households. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on agricultural products, including on wheat, barley, olives, vines or fruit trees, and goats or beehives; a total of 10,000 akçe.

In 1834, Dura's inhabitants participated in an uprising against the Egyptian Ibrahim Pasha, who took over the area between 1831 and 1840.
When Robinson visited in 1838, he described Dura as one of the largest villages in the area, and the residence of the Sheikhs of Ibn Omar, who had formerly ruled the area.

In 1863 the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the place, and noted that "Fragments of ancient columns, and a good number of cut stones taken from old constructions
and built up in the Arab houses, show the antiquity of the place. Two barracks especially have been built in this way. Above the door of one, a block forming the lintel was once ornamented with mouldings, now very much mutilated. Close to the town is a celebrated wely in which lies a colossal sarcophagus, containing, it is said, the body of Noah."

An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Dura had a population of 420, in 144 houses, though the population count included men, only.Socin, 1879, p
153
/ref> In 1877 Lieutenant Kitchener had some boys publicly flogged in Dura following an incident when stones were thrown at a member of the Palestine Exploration Fund survey party.

In 1883, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described Dura as "A large and nourishing village on the flat slope of a hill, with open ground on the east for about a mile. This plain is cultivated with corn. To the north of Dura are a few olives, and others on the south. The houses are of stone. South of the village are two Mukams with white domes; and on the west, higher than the village, is the tomb of Neby Nuh (Prophet Noah). Near these there are rock-cut sepulchres. The place is well supplied from three springs on the east and one on the south."Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p
304
/ref>

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Dura was divided into Dura al-‘Amaira, with 2,565 inhabitants, and Dura al-Arjan, with 3,269 inhabitants; a total of 5,834, all Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Hebron, p
10
/ref> The report of the 1931 census wrote that "the village in the Hebron sub-district commonly known as Dura is a congeries of neighbouring localities each of which has a distinctive name; and, while Dura is a remarkable example of neighbourly agglutination, the phenomenon is not infrequent in other villages". The total of 70 locations listed in the report had 1538 inhabited houses and a population of 7255 Muslims.Mills, 1932, pp
Preface, 28–32
/ref>

In the 1945 statistics the population of Dura was 9,700, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
23
/ref> who owned 240,704 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 3,917 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 90,637 for cereals, while 226 dunams were built-up (urban) land. Dura village lands covered in this period an estimated , which included 99 ruined settlement sites.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements

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