Jab'a ( ar, الجبعة) is a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

village in the central

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, located 17 kilometers north of Hebron and 15 kilometers southwest of

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...

. Located three kilometers east of the Green Line, it is located in the

Seam Zone Seam Zone ( he, מרחב התפר) is a term used to refer to a land area in the Israeli-occupied West Bank located east of the Green Line and west of Israel's separation barrier, populated largely by Israelis in settlements such as Alfei Menas ...

, surrounded by the Israeli settlements in the

Gush Etzion Regional Council The Gush Etzion Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית גוש עציון, ''Mo'atza Azorit Gush Etzion'') is a regional council in the northern Judean Hills, the northern part of the southern area of the West Bank, administering the se ...

and the

Israeli West Bank barrier The Israeli West Bank barrier, comprising the West Bank Wall and the West Bank fence, is a separation barrier built by Israel along the Green Line and inside parts of the West Bank. It is a contentious element of the Israeli–Palestinian ...

. Nearby Palestinian towns and villages include Surif adjacent to the Jaba'a,

Wadi Fukin Wadi Fukin ( ar, وادي فوقين) is a Palestinian village in the West Bank, eight kilometers southwest of Bethlehem in the Bethlehem Governorate. The village, is located on 700 acres of land, between the Green Line and the Israeli West Bank ...

and

Nahalin Nahalin, also spelled Nahaleen, ( ar, نحالين) is a Palestinian village located in the Bethlehem Governorate to the southwest of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The word ''nahaleen'' is Arabic for those who collect honey from bees. The village was ...

to the north. It is the northernmost locality in the

Hebron Governorate The Hebron Governorate ( ar, محافظة الخليل, Muḥāfaẓat al-Ḫalīl) is an administrative district of Palestine in the southern West Bank. The governorate's land area is and its population according to the Palestinian Central B ...

. According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ar, الجهاز المركزي للإحصاء الفلسطيني) is the official statistical institution of the State of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures ...

, Jab'a had a population of approximately 896 in 2007.2007 PCBS Census

. p.118. Jab'a has a total land area of 10,099 dunams, of which 1,002 dunams as built-up area.

History

Jab'a dates back to the

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

ites. The village is mentioned in

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Chris ...

' renowned work, ''Onomasticon'', as ''Gabatha'' ava'ot(Γαβαθα), believed by

historical geographer Historical geography is the branch of geography that studies the ways in which geographic phenomena have changed over time. It is a synthesizing discipline which shares both topical and methodological similarities with history, anthropology, eco ...

, Samuel Klein, to be Jab'a southeast of Bayt Nattif. Jab'a has been identified by Conder as the biblical site of

Gibeah Gibeah (; he, גִּבְעָה ''Gīḇəʿā''; he, גִּבְעַת, link=no ''Gīḇəʿaṯ'') is the name of three places mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, in the tribes of Benjamin, Judah, and Ephraim respectively. Gibeah of Benjamin is th ...

, Although not conclusive, it is said to be the burial-site of

Habakuk Habakkuk, who was active around 612 BC, was a prophet whose oracles and prayer are recorded in the Book of Habakkuk, the eighth of the collected twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. He is revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Almost al ...

the prophet. Elsewhere Eusebius purports that Habakuk was buried near a place called Ενκηλα (''`Ain Qe'ilah''), seven miles from

Bayt Jibrin Bayt Jibrin or Beit Jibrin ( ar, بيت جبرين; he, בית גוברין, translit=Beit Gubrin) was a Palestinian village located northwest of the city of Hebron. The village had a total land area of 56,185 dunams or , of which wer ...

, and which place is now called ''Khirbet Qila''.

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

ceramics have been found here.

Ottoman era

In 1596, Jaba appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the ''

Nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' of Quds of the '' Liwa'' of Quds, with a population of 3 Muslim households. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on wheat, barley, olives, and goats or beehives; a total of 1,110 akçe. In 1863, the French explorer

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Min ...

found Jab'a reduced to a hundred souls, while the Palestine Exploration Fund's ''

Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the Survey of Western Palestine and in 1880 for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. The survey was carried out after the ...

'' described Jeba in 1883 as "a small village standing upon a high, narrow ridge, with a steep valley to the north. The houses are of stone. To the east are caves in the face of the rock."Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p
25
/ref>

British Mandate of Palestine era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Al Jaba'a had a population of 122 inhabitants, all Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Hebron, p
10
/ref> while at the time of the 1931 census, El Jab'a had a population of 176, still Muslim, living in a total of 36 houses.Mills, 1932, p
32
/ref> In the 1945 statistics the population of El Jab'a was 210, all Muslims, who owned 5,593 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 102 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 1,880 used for cereals, while 12 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian era

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

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule. The

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

ian census of 1961 found 332 inhabitants.

1967 and aftermath

Since the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...

in 1967, Jab'a has been held under

Israeli occupation Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to a ...

. After the 1995 accords, 3.5% of village land was classified as

Area B The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The enclaves are often compared to the nominally self-governing black ...

land, while the remaining 96.5% was classified as Area C. Israel has put Jab'a inside the

Gush Etzion Gush Etzion ( he, גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן, ' Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural v ...

block, effectively isolating it from its Palestinian neighbours. The

will extend on Al Jab’a lands, isolating 90% of Jab'a's land from the village. On 25 February 2015, in an apparent price tag attack, a mosque in the village was torched. Israeli police were investigating it. The attack coincided with the anniversary of the

Cave of the Patriarchs massacre The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre or the Hebron massacre, was a shooting massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli extremist and member of the far-right Kach movement. On 25 F ...

that took place in Hebron 21 years ago. The fire was discovered by worshipers who quickly extinguished it. The carpets and walls were damaged but no one was reported to have been injured. Graffiti in Hebrew called for "revenge attacks" against Arabs and Muslims, according to eyewitnesses. In October 2020,

Israeli settler Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

s destroyed 300 olive trees in the northern part of the village.Israeli Colonizers Chop & Destroy 300 Palestinian Olive Trees
15 October 2020, IMEMC The village houses are small and consist of just one spacious room surrounded by a large area of farmland, on which almonds and olives grapes and are cultivated.Jab'aa
Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Palestine Remembered
Jaba
Welcome to Palestine *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17
IAA

Wikimedia commons Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...

Al Jab'a Village (Fact Sheet)

Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ar, معهد الابحاث التطبيقية - القدس) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research proje ...

, ARIJ
Al Jab’a Village
ARIJ
Al Jab'a aerial photo
ARIJ
The priorities and needs for development in Al Jab’a village based on the community and the local authorities’ assessment
ARIJ
Al Jab’a
{{Bethlehem Governorate Seam Zone Bethlehem Governorate Villages in the West Bank