Qibya () 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

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 northwest of

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 ...

and exactly north of the large

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i city of

Modi'in Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut ( ''Mōdīʿīn-Makkabbīm-Rēʿūt'') is a city located in central Israel, about southeast of Tel Aviv and west of Jerusalem, and is connected to those two cities via Route 443 (Israel), Highway 443. In the population ...

. It is part of the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, and according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of approximately 6,090 in 2017. The village is notorious for being the site of the 1953

Qibya massacre The Qibya massacre occurred during Operation Shoshana, an Israeli so-called reprisal operation that occurred in October 1953, when IDF's Unit 101 led by future Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon attacked the village of Qibya in the West Ban ...

Etymology

The name Qibyā is

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

, and means “The cistern”.

Location

Qibya is located (horizontally) northwest of

. It is bordered by

Ni'lin Ni'lin () is a Palestinian people, Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the central West Bank, located west of Ramallah. Ni'lin is about east of the 1949 Armistice Line (Green Line) bordered b ...

to the east, Shuqba to the north, the Green line to the west, and Budrus and

to the south.

History

Bar Kokhba Revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 AD) was a major uprising by the Jews of Judaea (Roman province), Judaea against the Roman Empire, marking the final and most devastating of the Jewish–Roman wars. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, the rebels succeeded ...

coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

dated to between 134 and 136 was found in a

Karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

near this village, suggesting that

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

who rebelled against the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

had found refuge in this cave.

Potsherd 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 Roman/Byzantine,

Byzantine Empire 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 History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

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 ...

and early Ottoman period have been found in the village.Finkelstein et al, 1997, p. 174 A building, possibly dating to the Crusader era have been found here.

Ottoman period

Qibya, like the rest of Palestine, 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 ...

in 1517, and in the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 1596, the village was located 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 ...

'' of

Ramla Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph S ...

of the '' Liwa'' of Gaza. It had an entirely

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 ...

population of 29 households. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

, summer crops,

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...

s, fruit trees, lintels, goats and/or beehives, in addition of taxes for a press for olives or grapes; a total of 6,000 akçe. According to Marom, in the 18th or early 19th centuries, residents of Qibya affiliated with the Yamani camp during the Qays and Yaman conflicts, alongside residents of Dayr Tarif and part of the residents of Bayt Nabala. They fought several skirmishes against rivals from Deir Abu Mash'al and Jayyous. In 1882, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described the village (then named ''Kibbiah''), as "a very small

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 ...

with olive-trees, on high ground".Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p
297
/ref>

British Mandate period

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, the village, (named ''Kibbia''), had a population of 694 inhabitants, all Muslims. In the 1931 census the population of Qibya was 909, still all Muslim, in 204 inhabited houses.Mills, 1932, p
22
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, the population of Qibya was 1,250, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
30
/ref> who owned 16,504

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. 4,788 dunams were used for cereals, while 32 dunams were built-up (urban) land. File:Qibya 1944.jpg, Qibya 1944 1:20,000 File:Deir Abu Mash'al 1945.jpg, Qibya 1945 1:250,000

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, Qibya came under

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.

Massacre

In October 1953 Qibya was the target of an Israeli raid known as the

Unit 101 Commando Unit 101 () was a sayeret (commando) unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), founded and commanded by Ariel Sharon on orders from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in August 1953. They were armed with non-standard weapons and tasked wit ...

commanded by a young

Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...

which resulted in the death of 67 or 69 unarmed civilians and large-scale destruction of the village. On October 18, 1953, the U.S. State Department issued a bulletin expressing its "deepest sympathy for the families of those who lost their lives" in Qibya as well as the conviction that those responsible "should be brought to account and that effective measures should be taken to prevent such incidents in the future." The United States temporarily suspended economic aid to Israel. The

ian census of 1961 found 1,635 inhabitants in Qibya.

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, Qibya 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 ...

. After the 1995 accords, 21.5% of Qibya land was classified as Area B, the remaining 78.5% as Area C. Israel has confiscated land from Qibya in order to construct 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 ...

. Qibya received media coverage again in the run-up to the 2001 Israeli general election when it was correctly forecast that Sharon would become the next Israeli Prime Minister.Guardian
From butcher to 'Lion' to Prime Minister of Israel by Jason Burke 4 February 2001

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14
IAAWikimedia commons

Qibya Village (Fact Sheet)
Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem (ARIJ)
Qibya Village Profile
(ARIJ)
Qibya aerial photo
(ARIJ)
Locality Development Priorities and Needs in Qibya Village
(ARIJ)
Israel illegally Re delineate the boundaries of the Palestinian Villages! The case of Qibya and Budrus villages
17, October, 2005
Halt-of-Construction orders hit Palestinian structures in the village of Qibya in Ramallah Governorate
23, December, 2010
UN
{{Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate Villages in the West Bank Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate Municipalities of Palestine