Deir Hanna ( ar, دير حنا, he, דֵיר חַנָּא) is a local council in the Northern District of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, located on the hills of the

Lower Galilee The Lower Galilee (; ar, الجليل الأسفل, translit=Al Jalil Al Asfal) is a region within the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. The Lower Galilee is bordered by the Jezreel Valley to the south; the Upper Galilee to t ...

, southeast of

Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...

. In it had a population of . Approximately 90% of Deir Hanna's inhabitants are Arab-Muslims and the remaining 10% are Arab-Christians.

Etymology

Several etymologies had been presented including: *The Convent of St. John * In the name of a Christian saint * Yohana or Hanun village which existed up until 732 BC and then again under the Byzantine rule * In name of a crusader who conquered the area * In the name of

Saint Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

History

Crusaders

In the

Crusader era The Crusader States, also known as Outremer, were four Catholic realms in the Middle East that lasted from 1098 to 1291. These feudal polities were created by the Latin Catholic leaders of the First Crusade through conquest and political in ...

, Deir Hanna was a

fief A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form ...

known as ''Berhenne'', or ''Der Henne''. In 1174 it was one of the casalia (villages) given to ''Phillipe le Rous''. In 1236 descendants of ''Phillipe le Rous'' confirmed the sale of the fief of Deir Henna. According to architectural researcher Andrew Petersen, no traces of Crusader occupation were found in the village.Petersen, 2001, p
132
/ref>

Ottoman Empire

Deir Hanna became a base for the Zaydānī family in the 18th century, and thus its importance grew with Zahir al-Umar's rise to power during that time. In the early to mid-18th century, Zahir gave his elder brother, Sa'd el-Omar, control of the village and nearby Arraba. The two villages served as the rural stronghold of the Zaydani family, and before taking the port town of

, Zahir resided in Deir Hanna and used it as his principal base of operations. Sa'd commissioned the construction of most of Deir Hanna's fortifications and in 1732-33, he built its mosque. When Sa'd died in 1767, Zahir's son Ali requested control over the village, but Zahir refused, earning him Ali's resentment. Following Zahir's defeat and death at the hands of the Ottoman military in 1775, Ali al-Zahir took over Deir Hanna. The Ottoman governor Jezzar Pasha launched a military campaign against Zahir's sons and besieged Deir Hanna. The strength of the village fortress allowed Ali to withstand the siege for several months until Jezzar received reinforcements from the Kapudan Hasan Pasha in July 1776. With the siege intensifying, Ali managed to escape the village and seek safety in

Mount Lebanon Mount Lebanon ( ar, جَبَل لُبْنَان, ''jabal lubnān'', ; syr, ܛܘܪ ܠܒ݂ܢܢ, ', , ''ṭūr lewnōn'' french: Mont Liban) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It averages above in elevation, with its peak at . Geography The Mount Le ...

, settling in the village of Niha. On 22 July, heavy damage to the fort by Ottoman cannon fire forced the remaining defenders to surrender. The surviving defenders of Deir Hanna were expelled from the village with their families by Jezzar, who subsequently demolished large parts of the village's fortress. Sa'd el-Omar is credited with the construction of the village fort's high inner walls, which at the time had 12 towers. Zahir is credited with the construction of the outer walls, while Ali al-Zahir had two towers built off of the eastern and western sides of the fort. Both of the latter towers were separated from the fortress and were meant to serve as additional protection in the event of a siege.Sharon, 2004, p.
57
/ref> The Zaydani mosque of Deir Hanna, before its destruction in 1776, had been the "most famous of all the Zaydani's buildings in the Galilee", according to historian Moshe Sharon.Sharon, 2004, p.
58
/ref> Local tradition claims that the mosque was built on top of an older Crusader-era church and that Jezzar Pasha had been so impressed by Sa'd's mosque, that he copied its design for his namesake mosque in Acre. Local peasants re-inhabited Deir Hanna sometime after Jezzar's assault, but the village did not recover its prominence and no longer posed a threat to Ottoman authority. In 1838, Deir Hanna was noted as a Christian and Muslim village in the ''Esh-Shagur'' district, located between Safad, Acca and

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's F ...

. In 1875

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 40 Muslim and four Greek Orthodox Christian families living in Deir Hanna. In 1881, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described the village and the building works of the Zahir al-Umar era as: "High walls all around the village, which is built of stone. The walls have round towers ..." It is situated on the top of a high ridge, and contains about 400

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ� ...

. It is surrounded by olive-groves and arable land. Water is obtained from

cistern A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by ...

s and an old paved birkeh oolto the north of the village."Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p
364
/ref> A population list from about 1887 showed that Deir Hanna had about 365 inhabitants; 280 Muslims and 85 Catholic Christians.

British Mandate

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 divis ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Dair Hanna had a population of 429; 320

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 ...

s and 109

,Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Acre, p
37
/ref> where all the Christians were Orthodox. By the 1931 census the population had increased to 563; 427 Muslims and 136 Christians, in a total of 117 houses.Mills, 1932, p
100
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, it had 750 Arab inhabitants; 540 Muslims and 210 Christians, with a total of 15,350

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 amou ...

s of land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April 1945''. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
40
/ref> Of this, 2,799 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 5,242 used for cereals, while 38 dunams were built-up land.

Israel

During Operation Hiram, 29–31 October 1948, the town surrendered to the advancing

Israeli army The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branch ...

. Many of the inhabitants fled north but some stayed and were not expelled by the Israeli soldiers. Morris, 1987, p. 226 Deir Hanna remained under

Martial Law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Martia ...

until 1966. Deir Hanna forms the Land Day triangle with Sakhnin and Arraba. The town has been through a thorough modernization process in the last 10 years, and now has a full education system, health care facilities and sports playgrounds.

Landmarks

Deir Hanna has a castle from the Zahir al-Umar era. Parts of the castle are still standing, as are the town walls, the old village church and a

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, ...

, and it is considered a tourist attraction.

Notable people

* Hiam Abbass, actress

References

Bibliography

* * (p. 95, Cited in Petersen, 2001) * *Edwards, C., Livingstone, K., and Petersen, A. D. (1993), ''Dayr Hanna: an Eighteenth-Century Fortified Village in Galile''e, in ''Levant'', 25, pp 63–92 (Cited in Petersen, 2001) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *(p 265 in the 1959-edition, p
136
here)

External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 6
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Authority control Arab localities in Israel Arab Christian communities in Israel Local councils in Northern District (Israel)