Qibya

Qibya
Other transcription(s)
• Arabic	قبية
Qibya Location of Qibya within the Palestinian territories
Coordinates: 31°58′39″N 35°00′35″E / 31.97750°N 35.00972°ECoordinates: 31°58′39″N 35°00′35″E / 31.97750°N 35.00972°E
Palestine grid	151/153
Governorate	Ramallah & al-Bireh
Government
• Type	Municipality
• Head of Municipality	Fahmi Makhtub
Area
• Jurisdiction	16,485 dunams (16.5 km^2 or 6.4 sq mi)
Population (2007)
• Jurisdiction	4,901
Name meaning	Domed[1]

Qibya (Arabic: قبية‎‎) is a Palestinian village in the West Bank, located 30 kilometers (19 mi) northwest of Ramallah and exactly north of the large Israeli city of Modi'in. 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 4,901 in 2007.^[2]

History

Potsherds from the Roman/Byzantine, Byzantine Empire, Mamluk and early Ottoman period have been found in the village.^[3]

Ottoman period

Qibya, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596, the village was located in the Nahiya of Ramla of the Liwa of Gaza. It had an entirely Muslim population of 29 households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, fruit trees, lintels, goats and/or beehives and a press for olives or grapes.^[4]

In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described the village (then named Kibbiah), as "a very small hamlet with olive-trees, on high ground".^[5]

British Mandate period

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, the village, (named Kibbia), had a population of 694 inhabitants, all Muslims.^[6] In the 1931 census the population of Qibya was 909, still all Muslim, in 204 inhabited houses.^[7]

In 1945 the population of Qibya was 1,250, all Muslims,^[8] who owned 16,504 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.^[9] 4,788 dunams were used for cereals,^[10] while 32 dunams were built-up (urban) land.^[11]

1948-1967

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Qibya came under Jordanian rule.

Massacre

In October 1953 Qibya was the target of an Israeli raid known as the Qibya massacre by Unit 101 commanded by Ariel Sharon 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."^[12] The United States temporarily suspended economic aid to Israel.

Post-1967

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Qibya has been under Israeli occupation.

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.^[13]

References

1. Palmer, 1881, p. 237
2. 2007 PCBS Census Archived December 10, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p.113.
3. Finkelstein et al, 1997, p. 174
4. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 153
5. Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 297
6. Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p. 22
7. Mills, 1932, p. 22
8. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 30
9. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 68
10. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 116
11. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 166
12. The Department of State issued a statement on Oct. 18, 1953 (Department of State Bulletin, Oct. 26, 1953, p. 552).
13. Guardian From butcher to 'Lion' to Prime Minister of Israel by Jason Burke 4 February 2001

Bibliography

• Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, Herbert H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Lederman, Zvi, eds. (1997). Highlands of many cultures. Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Publications Section. ISBN 965-440-007-3.
• Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
• Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
• Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas (PDF). Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
• Palmer, E. H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

External links

• Welcome To Qibya
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Qibya Village (Fact Sheet), Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ)
• Qibya Village Profile, Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ)
• Qibya aerial photo, Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (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