Beit Kahil

Beit Kahil () is a Palestinian village in the Hebron Governorate in the southern West Bank, located seven kilometers northwest of Hebron. The village had a population of 8,880 in 2017.

History

Victor Guérin noted that the place was apparently ancient, and suggested that Beit Kahil was to be identified with the Roman-period city known in Latin as ''Cela'' (Greek: Κηλά), described by Eusebius in his ''Onomasticon'', rather than with the Biblical Keilah (Greek: Κεειλά), which was already a ruin in Guérin's time.Guérin, 1869, pp
350
351

Oral tradition suggests that Beit Kahil was founded after the 16th century.

Ottoman era

In the 16th century, Beit Kahil functioned as a ''mazra'a'' (farm). It became inhabited with people from Bayt Jibrin, likely as a result of local conflicts. Bedouin settlers, possibly from Jamrura, also took residence there. The establishment of a permanent village dates back to around the mid-19th century.

Ben-Zvi wrote that the local inhabitants were originally Christians and converted to Islam around 150 years prior to his writing in the 1920s.

In the Ottoman census no. 289, (961 AH/1553-1554 CE) p. 209; Bayt Khalil was located in the ''nahiya'' of Halil, and noted as Mazra’a (cultivated) land.

In 1863 Victor Guérin found that it had thirty houses, while an Ottoman village list from about 1870 counted 8 houses and a population of 22, though the population count included men only.

In 1883 the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described Beit Kahel as “a small village on a ridge, built of stone, with a well to the south. Apparently an ancient place, with rock-cut tombs.”Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p
303
/ref>

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Beit Kahil had a population of 336 inhabitants, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 452, still entirely Muslim, in 90 inhabited houses.Mills, 1932, p
28
/ref> In the latter census it was counted with ''Kh. Beit Kanun'', ''Kh. Hawala'' and ''Kh. Tawas''.

In the 1945 statistics the population of Beit Kahil was 570 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
23
/ref> and the total land area was 5,795 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,359 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 1,785 were for cereals, while 26 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

File:Kahil 1945.jpg, Beit Kahil, British Mandate map, 1:20,000
File:Dawayima 1945.jpg, Beit Kahil 1945 1:250,000

1948-1967

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements

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