Kifl Haris () is a

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 ...

village in the northern

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 ...

, located six kilometers west of Salfit and 18 kilometers south of

Nablus Nablus ( ; , ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 156,906. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a ...

, in the

Salfit Governorate Salfit Governorate () is one of the 16 Governorates of the Palestinian National Authority, Governorates of the State of Palestine. It is located in the northwestern West Bank, held under Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Israeli occupation ...

of the

State 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 ...

; it is located northwest of the

Israeli settlement 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 Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

Ariel Ariel may refer to: Film and television *Ariel Award, a Mexican Academy of Film award * ''Ariel'' (film), a 1988 Finnish film by Aki Kaurismäki *, a Russian film directed by Yevgeni Kotov * ''ARIEL Visual'' and ''ARIEL Deluxe'', a 1989 and 1991 ...

History

Sherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

s from the

Middle Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

Iron Age II The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Crusader Crusader or Crusaders may refer to: Military * Crusader, a participant in one of the Crusades * Convair NB-36H Crusader, an experimental nuclear-powered bomber * Crusader tank, a British cruiser tank of World War II * Crusaders (guerrilla), a C ...

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...

and

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

eras have been found here.Finkelstein et al, 1997, p. 460

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, and in 1596, ''Kafr Harit'' appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in ''

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 Jabal Qubal, part of the

Sanjak of Nablus The Nablus Sanjak (; ) was an administrative area that existed throughout Ottoman rule in the Levant (1517–1917). It was administratively part of the Damascus Eyalet until 1864 when it became part of Syria Vilayet and then the Beirut Vilaye ...

. It had a population of 54 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 ...

. They paid taxes on occasional revenues, goats and/or beehives, and a fixed amount; a total of 22,500

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 ...

. Sherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found here. In the 18th and 19th centuries the village formed part of the highland region known as Jūrat ‘Amra or Bilād Jammā‘īn. Situated between Dayr Ghassāna in the south and the present Route 5 in the north, and between Majdal Yābā in the west and Jammā‘īn, Mardā and Kifl Ḥāris in the east, this area served, according to historian

Roy Marom Roy Marom (, ) is an Israeli historian and historical geographer. Marom is the curator of the Palestinian Rural History Project, which specializes in the history of the Palestinian countryside during the Ottoman and British Mandate periods. ...

, "as a buffer zone between the political-economic-social units of the

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 ...

and the

regions. On the political level, it suffered from instability due to the migration of the

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

tribes and the constant competition among local clans for the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Ottoman authorities." In 1838 Edward Robinson noted it as a village, ''Kefr Harith'', in the ''Jurat Merda'' district, south of Nablus. In 1870

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 ...

reached the village, after walking through "beautiful plantations of figs and olives". He estimated it had 600 inhabitants. The name of this place was given to Guérin as Kefil Haris. The Wely marked on the

Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...

1880s map as Sheikh Ata, 1 mile north-east of Kefr Haris, is called by him Sheikh Khather. He also calls attention to the remains of an old watchtower built of large, well-cut stones, between Deir Estia and Kefr Haris. At the latter place he found two broken

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

s built up in the wall of the mosque. In 1870/1871 (1288 AH) an Ottoman census listed the village in the ''

'' (sub-district) of Jamma'in al-Thani, subordinate to Nablus. In 1882 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 Kifl Haris as a "somewhat small village on high ground, with olive groves to the east. It has three sacred places, Neby Kifl, Neby Nun, and Neby Lusha."

British Mandate of Palestine 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, ''Kufr Hares'' had a population of 373, all

,Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Nablus, p
25
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 562 persons, still all Muslim, in 130 houses.Mills, 1932, p
61
In the 1945 statistics the population was 770 MuslimsGovernment of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
18
/ref> while the total land area was 9,393

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, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 4,117 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 2,131 for cereals, while 32 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

Jordanian era

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,Jordanian rule. In 1961 the population was 1,341.

post-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, Kifl Haris has been under

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 ...

. Visits by Jewish pilgrims to Kifl Hares are coordinated by the Israeli military. On 29 May 1989 a large group of Israeli civilians from Joseph's Tomb Yeshiva arrived in Kifl Haris shooting guns randomly. Ibtisan Abdul Rachman Busia, aged 16, was shot dead and two others injured. Two donkeys were killed.

Israeli Police The Israel Police (; ) is the civilian police force of Israel. As with most other police forces in the world, its duties include crime fighting, traffic control, maintaining public safety, and counter-terrorism. It is under the jurisdiction o ...

detained a number of suspects.

"Tomb of Joshua" and other shrines

According to ,

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

was buried in Timnath-serah, which is considered by Orthodox Jews to be the current location of Kifl Haris, where a Jewish tradition also places the tombs of

Caleb Caleb ( ; , Tiberian vocalization: , Modern Israeli Hebrew: ) is a figure who appears in the Hebrew Bible as a representative of the Tribe of Judah during the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land. Following the Israelite conquest of Ca ...

and

Nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

. Thousands make the pilgrimage to the tombs on the annual commemoration of Joshua's death, 26th of

Nisan Nisan (or Nissan; from ) in the Babylonian and Hebrew calendars is the month of the barley ripening and first month of spring. The name of the month is an Akkadian language borrowing, although it ultimately originates in Sumerian ''nisag' ...

on the

Hebrew calendar The Hebrew calendar (), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance and as an official calendar of Israel. It determines the dates of Jewish holidays and other rituals, such as '' yahrze ...

. According to a Samaritan tradition, noted in 1877, the tombs of

and

were in Kifl Haris. The mausoleum at Kifl Haris seen by Jews as the Tomb of Joshua, is known to Muslims as the

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 ...

of Yusha' ibn Nun (مقام يوشع بن نون; Shrine of Joshua, son of Nun) and as the Maqam of the Servant of Salah ad-Din (; Shrine of the Servant of

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

). The current structure of the Shrine of Joshua is known to be an Islamic shrine built by Sultan Saladin, which contained on its wall an inscribed plaque stating that "Jawhar bin Abdullah is one of the servants of the shrine." About this man, Palestinian historian Murad Mustafa Dabbagh wrote in his work ''Biladuna Filastin'' (Our Country Palestine; 1965) that he performed the pilgrimage on behalf of his master, the martyr Najm al-Din Ayyub, son of Sultan

Al-Adil I Al-Adil I (, in full al-Malik al-Adil Sayf ad-Din Abu-Bakr Ahmed ibn Najm ad-Din Ayyub, ,‎ "Ahmed, son of Najm ad-Din Ayyub, father of Bakr, the Just King, Sword of the Faith"; 1145 – 31 August 1218) was the fourth Sultan of Egypt and Syr ...

, and that the

Hajj Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...

took place in the year 610 AH (1213/14 CE), which places him and the time the shrine was built during the

period. The shrine considered by Jews to be the tomb of Caleb is seen by Muslims to be the maqam of Prophet Dhu al-Kifl, from whom they consider the first part of the town's name to be derived. The third holy structure in Kifl Haris, standing at some distance in the southwest of the town, is a large open shrine dedicated to Prophet Dhul-Nun, identified with Yunus (

Jonah Jonah the son of Amittai or Jonas ( , ) is a Jewish prophet from Gath-hepher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel around the 8th century BCE according to the Hebrew Bible. He is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, one of the minor proph ...

). Jews see in it the tomb of

, the father of Joshua. ''

Wafa Wafa (, , an acronym of , ), also referred to in English as the Palestine News Agency and the Palestinian News & Info Agency, is the official state media, state-run news agency of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Before the formation of ...

'' Palestine News Agency reports that after the 1967

, the village shrines became a religious destination for Jews, with visits increasingly taking a political and Judaizing character. In 2023 the tomb was vandalized with antisemitic phrases and messages supporting the

2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel On October 7, 2023, Hamas and several other Palestinians, Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, the first invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 ...

, including the phrase "Death to the Jews," names of terrorists, and endorsement for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A few days later, members of the Samaria Regional Council and IDF soldiers restored the tomb.

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

According to the United Nations

OCHA The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is a United Nations (UN) body established in December 1991 by the General Assembly to strengthen the international response to complex emergencies and natural disaster ...

, three local residents were killed during the

First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...

and one during the

Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...

. 42% of the village land is classified as Area B land, while the remainder 58% is

Area C Area C (; ) is the fully Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank, defined as the whole area outside the Palestinian enclaves (Areas A and B). Area C constitutes about 61 percent of the West Bank territory, containing most Israeli settle ...

. Israel has confiscated 361 dunams of land from Kifl Haris to establish the

. On 14 March 2013 Adele Biton was critically injured (later dying from her injuries), and her mother and two sisters were moderately injured, after their car crashed after Palestinians threw stones their way near the village. Five youths from Kifl Haris were charged by a military court for responsibility for the incident, and as of February 2015 the case has not yet been concluded. In June 2014 Jamil Ali Abed Jabir died during a night raid by the Israeli army. Locals say he suffered a heart attack while defending his home. According to an Israeli army spokesman, his house wasn't raided. In 2015 an Israeli tour of the site was preceded by a convoy of military vehicles which closed off the town entrances and imposed a shutdown of all the village shops so Israeli tourists could visit the tomb for several hours.

Demography

Local origins

According to , Kifl Haris' residents came from various locations, including

Ein Siniya Ein Siniya (, ''‘Ayn Sîniyâ'') is a small Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, north of Ramallah, and approximately 1km northeast from Jifna.Grant, 1921, p223 It lies in a valley surrounded with olive and fig-terrac ...

(near

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...

Jindas Jindas (Arabic: جنداس; Hebrew: ג'ינדאס) is an archaeological site in modern-day Israel, 2 kilometers east of the city of Lod in Israel's Central District. History The site has been inhabited since at least the Roman period. Its name ...

(a former village near

Lod Lod (, ), also known as Lydda () and Lidd (, or ), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephelah on the east and the coastal plain on the west. The ci ...

), and the

Hauran The Hauran (; also spelled ''Hawran'' or ''Houran'') is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, to the northeast by the al-Safa field, to the east and south by the Harrat ...

region (in what is today northern

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 ...

and southwestern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

).Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 354

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Welcome To Kifl HarithKifl Haris
IWPS *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14:
IAAWikimedia commons

Kifl Haris Town (Fact Sheet)

Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research projects in the fields of management of natural resources, water m ...

, ARIJ
Kifl Haris Town Profile
ARIJ
Kifl Haris Town – aerial photo
ARIJ
Development Priorities and Needs in Kifl Haris
ARIJ {{Authority control Towns in Salfit Governorate Salfit Governorate Jewish pilgrimage sites Municipalities of West Bank Municipalities of Palestine