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 ...
town located northeast of
Tulkarm
Tulkarm, Tulkarem or Tull Keram ( ar, طولكرم, ''Ṭūlkarm'') is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located in the Tulkarm Governorate of the State of Palestine. The Israeli city of Netanya is to the west, and the Palestinian cities o ...
in the
Tulkarm Governorate
The Tulkarm Governorate ( ar, محافظة طولكرم, Muḥāfaẓat Ṭūlkarm) is an administrative district and one of 16 Governorates of Palestine located in the north-western West Bank. The governorate's land area is 268 square kilometres ...
in the northwestern
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 ...
. The town is an agricultural town. 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 ...
, its population consisted over 8,387 inhabitants in 2007. The built-up area of the town is 1,000 dunams.
History
Ceramics 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.
In 1265, Qaffin was one of the estates given by Sultan Baibars to his followers after his victory over the
Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
.Zertal, 2016, pp 316317 /ref> Half of Qaffin was given to
emir
Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cer ...
''Rukn al-Din Baibars al-Mu'izzi''.
Ottoman era
In the 1596 Ottomantax-records a village named Qaffin appeared 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 ...
liwa'
Sanjaks (liwāʾ) (plural form: alwiyāʾ)
* Armenian: նահանգ (''nahang''; meaning "province")
* Bulgarian: окръг (''okrǔg''; meaning "county", "province", or "region")
* el, Διοίκησις (''dioikēsis'', meaning "province" ...
'' (district) 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 o ...
, with a population of 27 Muslim households. They paid taxes on a number of products, including
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
,
barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...
goat
The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...
s and
beehive
A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus '' Apis'' live and raise their young. Though the word ''beehive'' is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature ...
s, in addition to occasional revenues and a press for olive oil or grape syrup; a total of 9,000 akçe.
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 ...
'' described the village, then named ''Kuffin'' as: "A good sized village on the low hills east of the Plain of Sharon, with 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 ...
on the south side. It has rock cut tombs, and a palm grows near the village."
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Kaffin'' had a population of 721 Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 1,085 Muslims, living in 255 houses.Mills, 1932, p 70 /ref>
In the 1945 statistics the population of Qaffin, (including ''Kh. el Aqqaba'' and '' Kh. esh Sheik Meisar'') was 1,570 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p 21 /ref> and the land area was 23,755 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 5,863 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 8,371 were used for cereals, while 40 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
File:Qaffin 1942.jpg, Qaffin 1942 1:20,000
File:Qaffin 1945.jpg, Qaffin 1945 1:250,000
1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule.
In 1961, the population of Qaffin was 2,457.
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 Ju ...
in 1967, Qaffin 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 ...
.
* On 7 February, Bader Harashi (20) had quarreled with an Israeli soldier at the
Separation barrier
A separation barrier or separation wall is a barrier, wall or fence, constructed to limit the movement of people across a certain line or border, or to separate peoples or cultures. A separation barrier that runs along an internationally recogn ...
just outside the village, where he was protesting the Trump Middle East peace plan. According to Palestinian reports, the soldier, apparently a Druze, left, came back some minutes later in a jeep, opened the door andshot Harashi dead. According to the IDF investigation, Harashi was shot dead when observed preparing to throw a Molotov cocktail.
Gideon Levy
Gideon Levy ( he, גדעון לוי; born 2 June 1953) is an Israeli journalist and author. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper '' Haaretz'' that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories ...