Kharbatha Al-Misbah

Kharbatha al-Misbah ( ar, خربثا المصباح) is a Palestinian town in the central West Bank, located west of Ramallah in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 5,211 in 2007. It has a total land area of 4,431 dunams, of which 644 are built-up areas and the remainder agricultural lands and forests.

Location

Kharbatha al Misbah is located west of Ramallah. It is bordered by Beit Ur al Fauqa to the east, Beit Ur at Tahta to the north, Beit Sira to the west, and Beit Liqya to the south.

History

In 1838, it was noted as a Muslim village called ''Khurbata'' in the Lydda administrative region.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
121
/ref>Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, p.
66
/ref>

In 1863, Victor Guérin found the village to have 400 inhabitants, along with ruins identified in local tradition as the remains of a Christian church. He further noted five or six cisterns, and ancient tombs. Guérin thought that this was an ancient place that was founded on a Hebrew settlement whose original name had been lost.

Socin found from an official Ottoman village list from about 1870 that the village, called ''Charabta'', had a population of 194, with a total of 71 houses, though the population count included only men. Hartmann found that ''Charabta'' had 78 houses.

In 1882, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described the village, then called Khurbetha ibn es Seba, as "a small village on a ridge, with a well to the east."

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Kherbet al-Mesbah had a population of 369, all Muslim.Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramallah, p
17
/ref> In the 1931 census it had increased to a population of 488, still all Muslim, in 121 inhabited houses.Mills, 1932, p
50
/ref>

In the 1945 statistics, the population of Khirbat el Misbah was 600, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
26
/ref> who owned 4,438 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 1,026 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 2,133 used for cereals, while 25 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

File:el Misbah 1944.jpg, Khirbat el Misbah 1944 1:20,000 from 1919 survey
File:Burj 1945.jpg, Khirbat el Misbah 1945 1:250,000 (bottom right quadrant)

Jordanian era

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

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