Halhul

Halhul ( ar, حلحول, transliteration: ''Ḥalḥūl'') is a Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank, north of Hebron in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine. The town, bordered by Sa'ir and Ash-Shuyukh to the east, Beit Ummar and Al-Arroub refugee camp to the north, and Kharas and Nuba westwards,'Halhul'
ARIJ, 2000. is located 916 m above sea level, and is the highest inhabited place in Palestine. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the city had a population of 22,108 mostly Muslim inhabitants in 2007.2007 PCBS Census
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p.118.

According to Jewish, Christian and Muslim medieval traditions, the graves of the biblical prophets Gad and Nathan are located in Halhul. The burial site of prophet Nathan is described as a cave covered in a green color and caged off from the public. Another Muslim tradition places Jonah's grave in the town. The burial sites, formerly designated in the list of Holy Places under Israeli rule, are now under the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli settlement of Karmei Tzur lies on the outskirts of Halhul. Halhul is surrounded by ancient burial caves.

History

Antiquity

The Arabic name conserves the biblical toponym for the site, (Hebrew:חַלְחוּל;
Greek: Αἰλουά/Άλοόλ; Latin Alula,) which is believed to reflect a Canaanite word meaning "to tremble (from the cold)". According to the Bible, Halhul was a city in the tribal territory of Judah, located in the hill country near Beth-zur. Biblical scholar Edward Robinson identified the modern town with the "Halhul" mentioned in the Book of Joshua.Robinson, 1841, vol. 1, p
319
John Kitto noted that the modern name is identical with the Hebrew given in the Bible, hence "the name has remained unchanged for more than 3,300 years."

The archaeological digs at Burj as-Sur have uncovered the remnants of an ancient fortress city of the mid Bronze Age, presumably associated with the Hyksos. The city was demolished during an Egyptian raid in the 17th century BCE and was left in ruins for over 300 years. At the beginning of the Iron Age in the 11th century BCE it was resettled by Israelites.

The Bible mentions a tradition that Rehoboam refortified the city. Around 1000 BCE the town was abandoned and then slowly resettled until around 650 BCE it emerged as a bustling city. According to Jewish tradition, Halhul was the burial place of Gad the Seer.

Halhul was destroyed, together with Jerusalem and the First Temple, by Nebuchadnezzar II during his invasion of the Kingdom of Judah in 587 BCE. The city is mentioned again in chronicles of battles between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic kingdom. It was fortified by Judah the Maccabee after his victory in the Battle of Beth Zur nearby.

During the late Second Temple period, Halhul (Greek: ''Alurus'') and its immediate environs were considered a part of Idumea, presumably because of its Idumean inhabitants who converted to Judaism under John Hyrcanus. During the First Jewish-Roman War, the village became a trysting place for the different Jewish factions. During the Bar Kokhba revolt, the town's defenses were fortified.Lexicon of Eretz Israel – Halhul
(Hebrew)

A considerable amount of pottery has been unearthed bearing inscriptions in ancient Hebrew, most of them reading " To the king" (LMLK) and mentioning names of locations nearby. Handles with Jewish names inscribed in Greek have been found from the Hellenistic period.

Roman and Islamic house foundations have been dug deeply into older layers of habitation. Building remains with mosaic pavement with writing in Greek has been found on the site (called 'Aqd al-Qin) of a former church. Byzantine ceramics have also been found.

One of the earliest Muslim tombstones in Palestine has been found at Halhul. It commemorates an ''al-Malik bin al-Rumi al-Jarmi'', who died in 674CE (55AH).

Middle Ages

Chronicler Ali of Herat documented in 1173 CE that while Halhul was a part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem of the Crusaders, it was a village in which the tomb of Yunis ibn Matta (Jonah, son of Amittai) was located. Under the Ayyubids in 1226, a mosque with a minaret was constructed in the town. That same year, Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi visited Halhul, reporting that it lay between Hebron and Jerusalem and contained the tomb of Jonah.

Ottoman era

Halhul, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517. In the census of 1596, the village appeared in the tax registers as being in the ''Nahiya'' of Halil of the ''Liwa'' of Quds. It had an all Muslim population of 92 households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, vineyards and fruit trees, occasional revenues, goats and/or beehives.

John Wilson described it in 1847 as a place of Jewish pilgrimage. Edward Robinson visited Halhul in 1852, describing its surroundings as "thrifty", with numerous fields, vineyards, cattle, and goats. He reported that it was the "head of its district" and that the old mosque was in poor condition and had a tall minaret from which many other villages could be seen.

The French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863, and found it to have about 700 inhabitants. He mentions graves dating from the Jewish period carved in the rocks, a spring, ''Ain Ayoub'' (Job's spring) on the southern side of the hill which furnished the locals with water; a mosque ''Djama'a Nebi Yunis'' (mosque of the prophet Jonah) built of ancient stone, foreign access to which was forbidden.

An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Halhul had a population of 380, in 119 houses, though the population count included only men.Socin, 1879, p
154
/ref>

In 1883, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described Halhul as a large stone village on a hilltop, with two springs and a well. The mosque appeared to be a "modern" building.

11 Mosques, Nabi Yunis Mosque, Maqam Sahabi Abdullah bin Masood Mosque, Omary Mosque, Al Therwa Mosque, Al Rebaat Mosque, Dherr Ektat Mosque, Salah Al Dean AL Ayyubi Mosque, Al Hwawer Mosque, Al Huda Mosque, Al
Faroouk Mosque and Al Nuor Mosque, now dot the city and its environs.

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Halhul had a population of 1,927, all Muslim.Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Hebron, p
10
/ref> This had increased at the time of 1931 census, when Halhul, together with the surrounding Kh. Haska, Kh. en Nuqta, Kh. Beit Khiran, Kh. Baqqar and Kh. ez Zarqa had a population of 2,523 people in 487 houses. Except for one Christian woman, the population was still all Muslim.Mills, 1932, p
32
/ref>

In July 1939, during the Arab Revolt, the village was the site of an atrocity committed by the British Black Watch Regiment. In an attempt to force the villagers to give up weapons they were suspected of hiding, all the men in the village were imprisoned in a wire cage in the sun with little water. According to the British official Keith-Roach, after permission had been obtained, the officers

… instructed that they be kept there n an open cageand he gave them half a pint of water per diem. I saw the original order. The weather was very hot for it was summer. According to Indian Army Medical standards, four pints of water a day is the minimum that a man can live upon exposed to hot weather. After 48 hours treatment most of the men were very ill and eleven old and enfeebled ones died. I was instructed that no civil inquest should be held. Finally, the High Commissioner, MacMichael, decided compensation should be paid, and my Assistant and I assessed the damage at the highest rate allowed by the law, and paid out over three thousand pounds to the bereft families.

Palestinian versions put the death toll from dehydration at 13, with one more person shot as he endeavoured to escape.apology sought for British war crimes in Palestine,'
BBC News 7 September 2022- Some witnesses mentioned a second cage, either for women or a 'good' cage with adequate water for men who cooperated. A man who was driven by thirst to falsely claim to have hidden a gun down a well was killed when he failed to retrieve it.

In the 1945 statistics the population of Halhul was 3,380 Muslims,Department of Statistics, 1945, p
23
/ref> who owned 37,334 dunams 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
50
/ref> Of this, 5,529 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 13,656 for cereals, while 165 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian era

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