Umm Safa/Kafr Ishwa ( ar, أم صفا) or Um Al-Safa 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
Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate
The Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate ( ar, محافظة رام الله والبيرة ') is one of 16 governorates of Palestine. It covers a large part of the central West Bank, on the northern border of the Jerusalem Governorate. Its district ...
.
Location
Umm Safa is located north of
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 ...
'Atara
Atara ( ar, عطارة ''Atâra'') is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 15 kilometers north of Ramallah in the central West Bank. A village of nearly 2,300 inhabitants, it is situated along a mountain ridge l ...
Nabi Salih
Nabi Salih ( ar, النبي صالح, alternatively Nabi Saleh) is a small Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank, located 20 kilometers northwest of Ramallah. It has a population (2016) of 600. It i ...
and
Deir Nidham
Deir Nidham ( ar, دير نظام) is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank. It is located approximately northwest of the city of Ramallah and its elevation is . According to the Palestinian Centra ...
to the west, and
Jibiya
Jibia, (or Jibiya), is a town and Local Government Area (LGA) in Katsina State, northern Nigeria. The population of the LGA was approximately 125,000 as of 2003, and the area is 1037 km2.
The postal code of the area is 822.
Jibia sits alo ...
,
Burham
Burham is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,251, decreasing to 1,195 at the 2011 Census. The village is near the Medway towns.
The histor ...
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 south.
Important Bird Area
A largely forested 3,500 ha site in the vicinity of the villages of Umm Safa and Nabi Salih has been recognised as an
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.
IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...
(IBA) by
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...
because it supports a population of
lesser spotted eagle
The lesser spotted eagle (''Clanga pomarina'') is a large Eastern European bird of prey. Like all typical eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. The typical eagles are often united with the buteos, sea eagles, and other more heavy-set Acc ...
s.
History
It has been suggested that this was "apparently connected with an ancient Ishvah or Mizpeh,"Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p 291 /ref>Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP II, p 378 /ref> but this does not agree with
modern archaeology
Modern archaeology is the discipline of archaeology which contributes to excavations.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the h ...
.Finkelstein et al, 1997, p. 401
Ceramic remains from the
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 ...
era have been found here, as have
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 ...
Ayyubid
The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni ...
and
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'') ...
eras.
Ottoman era
Pottery sherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found here, and it was mentioned in the sixteenth hundreds tax records under the name of ''Kafr Shu''.
In 1838 ''Um Safah'' 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.
In 1870,
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 ...
climbed up on the hilltop which Umm Safa occupied, and found that the village had about 300 inhabitants. He further noted that: "It must go back to an ancient site as is shown by the materials used in the building of some houses and several
column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...
ar sections scattered about the ground. A copious spring, called ''Ain Umm Safa'', provides the villagers with water. They venerate, under a
koubbeh
A ''qubba'' ( ar, قُبَّة, translit=qubba(t), pl. ''qubāb''), also transliterated as ḳubba, kubbet and koubba, is a cupola or domed structure, typically a tomb or shrine in Islamic architecture. In many regions, such as North Africa, the ...
, the remains of ''Nabi Hanan''." An official Ottoman village list from about the same year, 1870, listed ''Kefr Eschwa'' as having 24 houses and a population of 120, though the population count included men, only. It was noted as being located north of Dschibija.
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 Umm Suffah (also called ''Kefr Ishwah'') as "a village on high ground on the Roman road to
Antipatris
Antipatris (, grc, Αντιπατρίς) was a city built during the first century BC by Herod the Great, who named it in honour of his father, Antipater. The site, now a national park in central Israel, was inhabited from the Chalcolithic P ...
. It contains a small
mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...
or Moslem chapel, and has a
well
A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...
to the north."
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, ''Umm Sufa'' had a population of 80 Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramallah, p 17 /ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 89 Muslims, in 27 houses in ''Umm Safah'' (or ''Kafr Ishwa'').Mills, 1932, p 51
In the 1945 statistics, the population of ''Umm Safa'' (''Kafr Ishwa'') was 110 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p 26 /ref> while the total land area was 4,083
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, 1,364 dunums were used for plantations and irrigable land, 821 for cereals, while 17 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.
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 252 inhabitants in Umm Safa.
1967-present
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, Umm Safa 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, 16% of village land has been defined as
Area B
The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of Israeli–Palestinian peace process, U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The enclaves are Israel and aparthe ...
land, while the remaining 84% is Area C. Israel has confiscated a total of 227 dunams of land from the village in order to construct two
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 ...
:
Ateret
Ateret ( he, עֲטֶרֶת, ''lit.'' Crown) is an Israeli settlement organized as a community settlement in the West Bank. Located in the municipal jurisdiction of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, it is located on a hilltop, at an elevation ...
tombs
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called ''immureme ...
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 ...