Jabbul (), is a depopulated former

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

village located 7 km north of

Baysan Beit She'an ( '), also known as Beisan ( '), or Beth-shean, is a town in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. The town lies at the Beit She'an Valley about 120 m (394 feet) below sea level. Beit She'an is believed to ...

. During Operation Gideon, the village was occupied by the

Golani Brigade The 1st "Golani" Brigade (, ''Hativat Golani'') is an Israeli military infantry brigade. It is subordinated to the 36th Division and traditionally associated with the Northern Command. It is one of the five infantry brigades of the regular Is ...

Location

Jabbul stood on a hill on the edge of the Baysan Valley, overlooking Wadi Yubla to the southwest. Wadi al-Ashsha ran through its land in the south. A secondary road linked it to the

Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...

highway, and other roads connected it to the surrounding villages.Khalidi, 1992, p. 51.

History

The site was probably known in

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 Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

times as Gebul or, more likely, as Gebula. Roman and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

ceramic remains have been found here. The Crusaders also referred to it as Gebul, which may have been derived from the Hebrew word for "boundary".

Ottoman era

In 1596, Jabbul was a farm that paid taxes to the government. 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 completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...

'' described the village as being situated on low ground and was built of stone and

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

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 Mandatory Palestine authorities, ''Jabul'' had a population of 231; 1 Christian and 230 Muslims, decreasing slightly in the 1931 census to 218, all Muslims, in 50 houses. The village had a circular plan, with houses radiating out from the village center. The houses were surrounded by farmlands. The entire population was

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

, and the village had a small

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

with a domed shrine which stood at the south of the houses. The village also had a number of shops, however, it mostly relied on

and the village of

Kawkab al-Hawa Kawkab al-Hawa (), is a depopulated former Palestinian village located 11 km north of Baysan. It was built within the ruins of the Crusader fortress of Belvoir, from which it expanded. The Crusader names for the Frankish settlement at ...

for education, medical care, trade and other services. A spring to the east of the village supplied them with water. In the 1945 statistics, the village had 250 Muslim inhabitants, and a total of 4,367 dunums was allocated to

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

s, 5 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. The elevated lands around the village were used for grazing, while 33 were built-up (urban) land.

1948, and after

On 7 June 1948, a platoon of

Barak Barak ( or ; ; Tiberian Hebrew: '' Bārāq''; "lightning") was a ruler of Ancient Israel. As military commander in the biblical Book of Judges, Barak, with Deborah, from the Tribe of Ephraim, the prophet and fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israe ...

troops, commanded by Yitzhak Shusterman raided the village along with others in the area. The troops arrived by bus and took up position on a high point on the outskirts of the village and lobbed a few two-inch mortar rounds into its centre and then moved in and searched it. The troops encountered harvesters who ran off and " ..opened fire but hit no ne. Arabs also fled from the village itself and the platoon "burned their crops and set alight several houses". In September 1948, Nahum Hurwitz of Kfar Gil'adi appealed in a letter for permission to destroy Jabbul,

, al-Bira and al-Hamidiyya in the area for fear that they may be used by Arabs for military operations and to enable them to "take the village's lands, because the Arabs won't be able to return there". Morris, 2004, p.
357

Walid Khalidi Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...

described the remaining structures of the village in 1992:

"The houses have been reduced to rubble and are overgrown with trees, thorns, and wild grass. The land around the site is cultivated."

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * *

External links

Welcome To JabbulJabbul
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 9:
IAAWikimedia commons
from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Baysan