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 ...
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
in the
West Bank
The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
.
The village is surrounded on all sides by the
Israeli West Bank barrier
The West Bank barrier, West Bank wall or the West Bank separation barrier, is a separation barrier built by Israel along the Green Line (Israel), Green Line and inside parts of the West Bank. Israel describes the wall as a necessary securi ...
, and outside Palestinians are denied access through the one Israeli checkpoint leading to it. In 2014 Israeli military authorities announced they would confiscate a further 3,167 acres of Beit Iksa lands, leaving the township, according to the village head, Saada al-Khatib, as a 2,500-dunum area.
Beit Iksa contains two primary schools run by the
Palestinian National Authority
The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a c ...
. Students attending secondary school travel to Jerusalem or nearby towns for education.
Location
Beit Iksa is a Palestinian village located (horizontally) north-west of
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
An Nabi Samwil
An-Nabi Samwil, also called al-Nabi Samuil ( ''an-Nabi Samu'il'', translit: "the prophet Samuel"), is a State of Palestine, Palestinian village in the Quds Governorate of the State of Palestine, located in the West Bank (Area C (West Bank), Area ...
According to Palmer Beit Iksa means "The house of Iksa" According to Marom et. al.; the second component traces back to the
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
Ks’, an
anthroponym
Anthroponymy (also anthroponymics or anthroponomastics, from Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος ''anthrōpos'', 'human', and ὄνομα ''onoma'', 'name') is the study of ''anthroponyms'', the proper names of human beings, both individual and coll ...
named after the day of the full moon (ks’). In this context, it may refer to a
calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...
term, possibly indicating a festival. The residents associate the anthroponym Kisa with the founder of their village.
In the 1870s, locals informed Clermont-Ganneau that the village's alternative name was Umm-el-ela. Beni Zeid settlers from the north who obtained permission for the site gave the village a new name, Beit Iksa.Sharon, 1999, pp 105 −108 During the Crusader period, the village was known as ''Jenanara'', according to its inhabitants.
History
Beit Iksa lies on one of the historical routes that joined the Mediterranean coastal plain with Jerusalem, and archeological excavations conducted south of the village have yielded remains from the
Hellenistic
In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
, Early
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 ...
, late
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 ...
and
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...
periods, which the archaeologists believe belonged to an ancient settlement close by on the southwest outskirts of Beit Iksa.
Ottoman era
In 1517, the village was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
with the rest of
Palestine
Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
.
In 1552, Beit Iksa was an inhabited village. HasekiHürrem Sultan, the favourite wife of
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
. Administratively, Beit Iksa belonged to the District of Jerusalem. During this time, as in later periods, the residents of the village cultivated the lands of Kharruba.
In the 1596 tax-records it appeared under the name of ''Bayt Kisa'', located in the ''
Nahiye
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 ...
'' of Jerusalem in the ''
Sanjak
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 ...
'' of the
Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem
The Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem (, ; , , ), also known as the Sanjak of Jerusalem, was a district in Ottoman Syria with special administrative status established in 1872.Büssow (2011), p5Abu-Manneh (1999), p39Jankowski & Gershoni (1997), p174 T ...
. It had a population of 79 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 ...
s. The inhabitants paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, orchard, goats or bee hives, and a press for olives or grapes; a total of 18,000
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 ...
.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 121.
In 1838, Beit Iksa was noted as a Muslim village, part of the '' El-Kuds'' district.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 121 /ref>
In 1841 a local leader ('' nāzir''), ''Abd al-Qadir al-Khatib'', built an Ottoman castle located in the southern part of the village, while one of his brother built a smaller version five years later. In 1863, the French explorer
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 ...
passed by the village and was told it had 300 inhabitants. He noted that the surroundings were cultivated with vines and olive trees. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that "Bet Iksa" had 70 houses and a population of 147, though the population count included only men. According to Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, he was informed in 1874 that the inhabitants belonged to the Beni Zeid
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...
and that the village earlier had been named ''Umm el Ela''.
In 1883, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described it as a "village of moderate size, with stone houses, and a
well
A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth 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 north, near which is a tree sacred to an otherwise unknown prophet, Nabī Leimûun. There are a few olives round the village."
Around 1896 the population of Beit Iksa was estimated to be about 714 persons.
By the beginning of the 20th century, residents from Beit Iksa settled Kharruba near al-Ramla, establishing it as a dependency – or satellite village – of their home 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, "Bait Iksa" had a population of 791, 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 ...
s,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p 14 /ref> increasing in the 1931 census to a population of 1003, in 221 houses.Mills, 1932, p 38 /ref>
In the 1945 statistics, Beit Iksa had a population of 1,410, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p 24 /ref> with 8,179
dunam
A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...
s of land, according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p 56 /ref> Of this, 1,427 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 2,690 used for cereals, while 43 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
Jordanian era
In April 1948, most of the villagers fled following the fall of Deir Yassin and the
Haganah
Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
entered the village destroying many buildings.
In the wake of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...
, and after the
1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
ian rule. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950.
In 1961, the population of Beit Iksa was 1,177.
After 1967
Since the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
in 1967, Beit Iksa has been under Israeli occupation.
After the 1995 accords, 7.4% of village land was classified as Area B, the remaining 92.6% as Area C. Over half of the land lies beyond the confines of the West Bank separation barrier.Beit Iksa Village Profile ARIJ, p. 16Village Profiles: Profile of Beit Iksa, Jerusalem
United Nations Relief and Works Agency
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...
. January 2004.
The majority of the present population came to the village as refugees in the wake of the Six Day War, when its original inhabitants were forced to flee. In November 2014, Israeli authorities delivered a notification to the village, declaring the intention of confiscating 12,852 dunums (3,176 acres) of their land, including the areas of Haraeq al-Arab, Thahr Biddu, Numus, and Khatab. The given reason for the confiscation states that the land is required "for military purposes". Landholders were given until 31 December 2017 to remain on their land.'Israel to confiscate 3,200 acres of Palestinian land near Jerusalem,' a'an News Agency 8 November 2014.
Israeli settlements
Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and hav ...
, including Ramot, have been built on 1,500 dunums (371 acres) on village land, and according to the village major, the order came through after the Israel government announced plans for a further 244 housing units to be built in Ramot. In addition, Israel has confiscated 15 dunums for the Israeli settlement of ''Har Samuel'', part of the Giv'at Ze'ev settlement.
After the 7 October 2023 attack Israel has restricted movement in the village, so that “Living in Beit Iksa is like living in a prison", according to the
Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...
. Since 2008, entry to the village is through an Israeli-controlled checkpoint, and entry is only given to the villages 1,800-1,900 registered residents, in addition to professionals (medics, teachers) with permits. There are "strict rules" for entry of "food, water tanks, sheep, construction materials". In February, 2024, the Israel Border Police at the checkpoint opened "insane, indiscriminate gunfire" killling a 4 year old girl from Beit Iksa.Israeli Border Police Killed a 4-year-old Palestinian Girl, Then Took 10 Days to Return Her Body Gideon Levy and Alex Levac, Feb 10, 2024,
Haaretz
''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
Population
According to the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ) is the official statistical institution of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures at the national and international levels. It is a state institution that provid ...
(PCBS), Beit Iksa had a population of approximately 1,600 inhabitants in mid-year 2006. From the population, over 80% are
Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country, village or house over the course of the 1948 Palestine war and during the 1967 Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refug ...
s. By 2014 the population had grown to some 1,700. By 2017, the population was 1,773.
According to the land researcher Sami Hadawi, the population grew to 1,410 in 1945. However, following Israel's occupation after the 1967
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
, Beit Iksa counted 633 inhabitants, due to the number of residents that fled the village. Most of the village's inhabitants hold Palestinian ID cards and live in Beit Iksa's built-up area of 417
dunam
A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...
s or 5.4% of the village's total land area of 7,734 dunams.
Shrines
In the 1920, Tawfiq Canaan noted several shrines, or
maqam
Maqam, makam, maqaam or maqām (plural maqāmāt) may refer to:
Musical structures
* Arabic maqam, melodic modes in traditional Arabic music
** Iraqi maqam, a genre of Arabic maqam music found in Iraq
* Persian maqam, a notion in Persian clas ...
s here. Es-seh ''Mbarak''/''Imbarak'' had one in the public cemetery, with a niche, for holding oil-lamps, etc, in the northern side of the shrine.
A shrine for Sheik ''Hasan'' was badly damaged during WWI.
A shrine for Sheik ''Iteyim'' was also used as a ''madafeh'', or guest room, in addition to being used as a school room.Canaan, 1927, p 17 /ref>
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