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 barrier,Settlement expansion and loss of Wadi Fukin's land
Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem. 2005-05-23 According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Wadi Fukin had a population of over 1,168 in 2007.2007 PCBS Census
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p.117. with the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit on one side, and the Israeli town of Tzur Hadasa on the other.David Tepper
'The fight to save a village continues in Wadi Fukin,'
Mondoweiss 19 November 2014. The village relies on agriculture as its primary source of income.“Declared as State Land” New Israeli Military Orders Targeting Palestinian Lands in Al Jaba’a & Wadi Fukin villages Southwest Bethlehem city
Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem. 2008-02-03 Israel served eviction orders on the village in September 2014.

Ahmad Sukkar is the head of the village council.

History

Ancient remains have been found in the area, including remains of a chapel, cisterns, burial caves in rock, columbarium, and Byzantine ceramics.

At ''Kh. Ain Al-Kanisah'', just east of Wadi Fukin, there are the remains of a church. The church had two construction phases; the first in the 5th-7th century C.E., the second construction phase was probably between the 8th and the 11th century.

Ottoman period

Wadi Fukin, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the Ottoman census of 1596, the village, called ''Fuqin'', was in the ''Nahiya'' of Quds of the '' Liwa'' of Al Quds. It had an entirely Muslim population of 20 households. A fixed tax rate of 33.3% were paid on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olives, grape syrup/molasses, goats and/or beehives; a total of 2,280 akçe.

Victor Guérin visited the village in the 1863, which he described as "half ruined" with a small number of people. He noted that the village was the successor to an ancient town, as he found several ancient tombs carved into rock.
An official Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed that ''Wad Fukin'' had a total of 22 houses and a population of 62, though the population count included only men.

In 1883, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described Wad Fukin as "A small stone village on the side of a hill, with a good spring in the valley below on the south-west. There are gardens of oranges and lemons near the spring. To the west of the village there are rock-cut tombs. To the east is a second spring, Ain el Keniseh."

In 1896 the population of Wadi Fukin was estimated to be about 123 persons.

British Mandate period

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Wadi Fukin had a population of 149, all Muslims. In the 1931 census the population of Wadi Fukin was 205, still all Muslim, in 45 inhabited houses.Mills, 1932, p
35
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In the 1945 statistics the population of Wady Fukin was 280, all Muslim,Department of Statistics, 1945, p
25
who owned 9,928 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 226 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 863 for cereals, while 6 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

1948−1967

Prior to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Wadi Fukin was raided by the Haganah a number of times and several inhabitants fled to the Dheisheh