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 ...
Ramallah
Ramallah ( , ; ar, رام الله, , God's Height) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank that serves as the ''de facto'' administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusale ...
Umm Safa
Umm Safa/Kafr Ishwa ( ar, أم صفا) or Um Al-Safa is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate.
Location
Umm Safa is located north of Ramallah. It is bordered by 'Ajjul and 'Atara to the east, Deir as Sudan and Ajj ...
the east, north and west, and
Kobar
Kobar ( ar, كوبر) is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the northern West Bank. Kobar is located at an altitude of above sea level with a mean annual rainfall of 669.8 mm. The average annual temperature is 1 ...
to the west and south.
History
Pottery
sherd
In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels, as well.
Occasionally, a piece of broken p ...
s from the
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
,
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 ...
, and the
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
/
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
eras have been found here.Finkelstein et al, 1997, p. 399
It has been suggested that this was ''Geba'' in the Onomasticon,Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p 290 /ref> and the Crusader place called ''Gebea'', but both these identifications have now been discarded.
Pottery sherds from the
Mamluk
Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
era have also been found here.
Ottoman era
Pottery sherds from the early Ottoman era have been found here. In the spring of 1697,
Henry Maundrell
Henry Maundrell (1665–1701) was an academic at Oxford University and later a Church of England clergyman, who served from 20 December 1695 as chaplain to the Levant Company in Syria. His ''Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter A.D. 1697'' ...
noted two "Arab villages," first "Geeb" and then "Selwid," both on the west side of the road on the way south from Nablus to Jerusalem.Maundrell, 1703, p 63 March 25, 1697Edward Robinson identified these two villages as Jibiya and
Silwad
Silwad ( ar, سلواد) is a Palestinian town located north-east of Ramallah, about 5 km away from the Nablus-Jerusalem highway. Silwad's altitude is about 851 meters above sea level. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics ...
.Robinson and Smith,1841, vol 3, pp 80 81
In 1838 ''Jibia'' was noted as a
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
village the ''Beni Zaid'' district, north of Jerusalem.
In 1863
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 Mino ...
noted it as a small village, with a
shrine
A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy sacred space, space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daem ...
, dedicated to a
Sheikh
Sheikh (pronounced or ; ar, شيخ ' , mostly pronounced , plural ' )—also transliterated sheekh, sheyikh, shaykh, shayk, shekh, shaik and Shaikh, shak—is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates a chief of a ...
''Baiezed''.
An official Ottoman village list from about 1870, listed ''Dschibija'' as having 12 houses and a population of 39, though the population count included men, only.
In 1882 the PEF'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 ...
'' (SWP) described Jibia as "a small village on high ground, with olives below."
In 1896 the population of ''Dschibja'' was estimated to be about 84 persons.
British Mandate era
In the
1922 census of Palestine
The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922.
The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...
conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Jebia'' had a population of 62 Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramallah, p. 16 /ref> increasing slightly in the 1931 census to 63, in 17 houses.Mills, 1932, p 49
In 1945 statistics, the population was 90, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p 26 /ref> while the total land area was 1,666
dunam
A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...
s, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 100 were plantations and irrigable land, 815 for cereals, while 4 dunams were classified as built-up areas.
Jordanian era
In the wake of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
, and after the
1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule.
Post-1967
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 world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
in 1967, Jibiya has been 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, 51.4% of village land is defined 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 48.6% is defined as Area C. Israel has confiscated land from Jibiya in order to construct Israeli bypass roads 4 and 566, to
Israeli settlements
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 ...
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 project ...