Al-Mansouri () is a municipality in the

Tyre District The Tyre District is a district in the South Governorate of Lebanon. Municipalities The following 72 municipalities are all located in the Tyre District: * Al-Aabbassiyah * Aaitit * Aalma ash-Shaab * Ain Abu Aabdallah * Ain az-Zarqa * Ain ...

South Lebanon Southern Lebanon () is the area of Lebanon comprising the South Governorate and the Nabatiye Governorate. The two entities were divided from the same province in the early 1990s. The Rashaya and Western Beqaa districts, the southernmost distr ...

History

In the 1596 tax records in the early Ottoman era, it was named as a village, ''Mansura'', in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, 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 divisi ...

'' (subdistrict) of

Tibnin Tibnin ( ''Tibnīn'', also Romanized ''Tibnîn'', ''Tebnine'' etc.) is a municipality spread across several hills (ranging in altitude from 700m to 800m (2,275 ft to 2,600 ft) above sea level) located about east of Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre ...

under the ''

liwa' A sanjak or sancak (, , "flag, banner") was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans also sometimes called the sanjak a liva (, ) from the name's calque in Arabic and Persian. Banners were a common organization of nomad ...

'' (district) of

Safad Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortified town in the Upper Gal ...

. It had a population of 33 households, all

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 ...

. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on various agricultural products, including 1,300

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

on wheat, 350 on barley; 150 on olive trees, 100 on "occasional revenues"; a total of 1,900

.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 183 In 1875

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...

noted here about "a dozen houses built with ancient materials, quite regularly carved. A oualy was dedicated to ''Neby Mansour''.

Cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

s dug into the rock and several broken

sarcophagi A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek σάρξ ' meaning "flesh", and φ� ...

also prove that this

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

, now inhabited by some poor Métualis families, has succeeded a much larger former village." 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: "A village built of stone, on the plain, surrounded by olives, figs, and arable land ; contains about 50 Moslems. Water from cisterns and spring near shore." They also noted some rock-cut tombs by the village. On 13 April 1996, during

Operation Grapes of Wrath Operation Grapes of Wrath ( ''Mivtsa Enavi Zaam''), known in Lebanon as the April Aggression (), was a seventeen-day campaign of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) against Hezbollah in 1996 which attempted to end the Iran-backed group's rocket a ...

, an

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

(IDF) helicopter attacked a vehicle in Al-Mansouri, killing two women and four children.

Demographics

In 2014

Muslims 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 ...

made up 99.73% of registered voters in Al-Mansouri. 99.09% of the voters were

Shiite Muslims Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood to ...

Turtle Reserve

In early 2000, environmentalist Mona Khalil – who had inherited her family's beachfront farm that stretches from the main road to the yet unspoiled beaches – moved to Al-Mansouri from the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, where she had lived in exile for 25 years. Three months later, the IDF ended two decades of

Israeli occupation Israel has occupied the Golan Heights of Syria and the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967. It has previously occupied the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and southern Lebanon as well. Prior to 1967, control of the Palestinian terr ...

in the nearby buffer zone and withdrew with its allies of the

South Lebanon Army The South Lebanon Army or South Lebanese Army (SLA; , ), also known as the Lahad Army () or as the De Facto Forces (DFF), was a Christianity in Lebanon, Christian-dominated militia in Lebanon. It was founded by Lebanese military officer Saad H ...

from there. In the same year, Khalil and her associate Habiba Fayed opened their Orange House Project as a

bed-and-breakfast A bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. In addition, a B&B sometimes has the hosts living in the house. ''Bed and breakfast'' is also used to ...

in order to finance their efforts to protect the nesting grounds of

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

sea turtles Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerh ...

through

ecotourism Ecotourism is a form of nature-oriented tourism intended to contribute to the Ecological conservation, conservation of the natural environment, generally defined as being minimally impactful, and including providing both contributions to conserv ...

. In June 2017, a television crew from

LBCI The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (), widely known as LBCI (), Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation () or LBC () is a private television station in Lebanon. LBCI was founded in 1992 by acquiring the assets, liabilities and logo of ...

was attacked while filming an interview with Mona Khalil at the turtle reserve. An unidentified assailant disrupted the filming, assaulting cameraman Samir Baitamouni and verbally threatening Khalil, citing affiliations with

Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...

and Amal. Journalist Sobhiyya Najjar captured the incident on her mobile phone.

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

Municipality websiteMansouri
localiban.org *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 1
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Tyre District Populated places in the Israeli security zone 1985–2000 Populated places in Tyre District Shia Muslim communities in Lebanon