Qabatiya ( ar, قباطية, also spelled Qabatia, Qabatya, and Kabatiya) is a Palestinian city located in the

Jenin Governorate The Jenin Governorate ( ar, محافظة جنين, Muḥāfaẓat Ǧanīn) is one of 16 Governorates of Palestine. It covers the northern extremity of the West Bank, including the area around the city of Jenin. During the first six months of th ...

of the

State of Palestine Palestine ( ar, فلسطين, Filasṭīn), officially the State of Palestine ( ar, دولة فلسطين, Dawlat Filasṭīn, label=none), is a state located in Western Asia. Officially governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization ( ...

, in the northern

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, located 6 km south of

Jenin Jenin (; ar, ') is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the northern West Bank. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate of the State of Palestine and is a major center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, Jenin had ...

. According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ar, الجهاز المركزي للإحصاء الفلسطيني) is the official statistical institution of the State of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures a ...

(PCBS) census, the town had a population of 19,197 in 2007.2007 Locality Population Statistics

Its total land area consists of and it is situated approximately above sea level. Qabatiya is famous for its

olive groves The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea' ...

, modern agriculture, and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

industry.

History

Sherd In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are ...

s have been found here from Persian,

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 ...

, early and late

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

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 ...

, early Muslim and

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

eras.Zertal, 2004, pp
177
178 A Muslim traveller in the 12th century CE indicated it as "a village in the district of Jenin".

Ottoman era

Qabatiya, like all of Palestine was incorporated into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

in 1517. In the 1596 tax registers, it was part of the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' ("subdistrict") of Jabal Sami, part of the larger Sanjak of Nablus. It had a population of 89 households and 18 bachelors, all

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. The inhabitants paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 14,920

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is der ...

. Half of the revenues went to the Tarabay Bey of

Lajjun Lajjun ( ar, اللجّون, ''al-Lajjūn'') was a large Palestinian Arab village in Mandatory Palestine, located northwest of Jenin and south of the remains of the biblical city of Megiddo. The Israeli kibbutz of Megiddo, Israel was built on ...

. In 1105 AH (1693 CE) Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi mentioned a village on the road from Nablus to Jenin. in 1838 Edward Robinson found it to be a very large village, surrounded by very extensive and beautiful olive groves, while in 1850, it was described as surrounded by gardens, built on the side of a wooden hill, covered with olive trees. 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 Min ...

found gardens around Koubatieh planted with fig, olive and pomegranate trees, with vegetables underneath. It was a large village, divided into several areas under the jurisdiction of many different sheikhs. He further noted that “Kubataieh stands upon a rocky hill, whose sides are pierced by numerous

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 of ancient origin, some of which are partly filled up and in bad repair ; others are still used by the people. The latter are closed at the mouth by great round stones in form of a mill-stone, pierced in the centre. This second opening is itself closed by another stone, which is taken away when the water is drawn. This system of closed

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 ...

s and cisterns by means of a stone is of extreme antiquity. It is found in many parts of Palestine, and was in use before the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

conquest.” In 1882, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described it as a “large stone village on a slope, east of a small plain which is full of olives. It has a sacred place on the south (Sheikh Theljy), and a good orange garden near the village.”

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 divis ...

, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Qabatiya had 1,803 inhabitants; 1,799 Muslims and 4 Christians,Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Jenin, p
29
/ref> where the Christians were all Orthodox.Barron, 1923, Table XV, p
47
/ref> This increased to 2,447 in the 1931 census; 2 Christians and the rest Muslims, in a total of 551 houses.Mills, 1932, p
71
/ref> In the 1945 statistics the population of Qabatiya, together with Kh. Tannin, was 3,670, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
16
/ref> with 50,547

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, according to an official land and population survey. 9,542 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 21,464 dunams for cereals, while 113 dunams were built-up (urban) land and 19,428 sunams were classified as "non-cultivable".

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, together with the rest of the

. In 1961, the population of Qabatiya was 5,917.

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 states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 ...

in 1967, Qabatiya 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 t ...

. After Oslo II in 1995, Qabatiya came under

Palestinian Authority The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine,

(PA) administration, in what is now known as Areas A and B. Approximately ten Palestinians were killed between October 2015 and July 2016 while carrying out attacks against Israelis. In July 2016, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli armed forces occurred during a house demolition by Israel of a man accused of being involved in an attack in Jerusalem. The Israeli military reported that the military convoy that carried out the demolition was met by

Molotov cocktails A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flamma ...

and fire from improvised guns. Palestinian officials reported six Palestinians wounded in the exchange, with the Israeli military confirming three Palestinians hit. Israel calls the demolition of homes of attackers as a deterrent to violence, while human rights groups and Palestinians condemn it as a form of

collective punishment Collective punishment is a punishment or sanction imposed on a group for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member of that group, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends and neighbors of the perpetrator. Because ind ...

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * (Monro, 1835, vol 1, p
277
cited in Robinson and Smith, vol 3, p
154
* * * * *

External links

Qabatiya
Welcome to Palestine *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 11
Wikimedia commons

Google-mapWolfram, Alpha – Qabatiya
{{DEFAULTSORT:Qabatiya Cities in the West Bank Jenin Governorate Municipalities of the State of Palestine