Al Jib

Al Jib
Other transcription(s)
• Arabic	الجيب
• Also spelled	al-Jib (official) al-Jeeb, el-Jib, el-Jeeb (unofficial)
View of Jib's center, 2012 View of Jib's center, 2012
Al Jib Location of Al Jib within the Palestinian Territories
Coordinates:
Palestine grid	167/139
Governorate	Jerusalem
Government
• Type	Village council
Area
• Jurisdiction	9,879 dunams (9.9 km2 or 3.8 sq mi)
Population (2006, approx.)
• Jurisdiction	4,700
Name meaning	El Jib, personal name

Al Jib or al-Jib (Arabic: الجيب‎‎) is a Palestinian village in the Jerusalem Governorate, located ten kilometers northwest of Jerusalem, in the seam zone of the West Bank. The surrounding lands are home to Al Jib Bedouin. Since 1967, Al Jib is occupied by Israel and about 90% of its lands are assigned as Area C. About a quarter of the land is seized by Military Orders for the establishment of Israeli settlements. The neighborhood Al Khalayleh was separated by the West Bank barrier. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, al-Jib had a population of approximately 4,700 in 2006. The modern village is identified with the ancient city of Gibeon.

History

See also: Gibeon (ancient city)

File:Al Jib 1938-39.jpg

Al-Jib, 1938-39

The first scientific identification of al-Jib with the ancient Canaanite city of Gibeon was made by Edward Robinson in 1838. Archaeological excavations led by James Pritchard in 1956, 1957, and 1959 confirmed this identification with the discovery of 56 jar handles inscribed with the Semitic triliteral gb'n. The inscriptions were dated to the end of the Judean monarchy and have been cross-referenced against genealogical lists in the Book of Chronicles. While they include many Benjaminite names, they also include non-Israelite names, attesting to the intermixing of local population.

A vaulted building still remaining in the centre of Al Jib has been dated from between mid fifth and mid eight centuries CE. The building has earlier been described as a church from the Crusader era, with "total length of the chapel appears to have been 40 feet east and west, 22 feet north and south. The apses have been apparently built up. There were three bays of arches, and in the side walls are small doors with lintels". D. Pringle dismissed the possibility that this was a former church, and suggest instead that it was an Umayyad palace building, or possibly dating from the Abbasid era.

In 1152, during the Crusader era, a confrater of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Baldwin of Tournai, was granted a prebend relating to juxta Gabeon. In 1172, after the fall of Jerusalem, Saladin halted at Al Jib, before continuing to Beit Nuba.

El-Jib was described by the geographer Yâkût in 1225 as having two fortresses standing close together.

Ottoman era

By the 1550s the agricultural revenues of Jib belonged to the endowment (waqf) of Mamluk Sultan Inal (r. 1453-61) in Egypt. However, three tribes of the Hutaym Bedouin were affiliated with the village. The taxes they paid plus levies normally earmarked for the military were in the 1550s designated for the waqf of Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem. In the 1596 tax-records it appeared as Jib, located in the Nahiya of Jabal Quds of the Liwa of Al-Quds. The population was 103 households, large enough to be divided into 4 quarters. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olive trees, fruit trees, grape syrup or molasse, in addition to occasional revenues, goats and beehives; a total of 16060 Akçe.

In 1838 Edward Robinson described as a village of moderate size, with the houses standing very irregularly and unevenly. He further noted "One large massive building still remains, perhaps a castle or tower of strength. The lower rooms a vaulted with round arches of hewn stones fitted together with great exactness. The stones outside are large; and the whole appearance is that of antiquity."

In 1863 Victor Guérin found that Al Jib had 500 inhabitants. In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it as "on the end of a hill, rising 300 feet above the valley. On the south is a narrow plain, and there is an open valley on the east, whilst to the north and west there is also a flat plain. The hill is thus isolated, and a position naturally of great strength. The houses cover the northern part of the hill. The village is of moderate size, the houses of stone, with a central tower, and massive foundations exist among the modern buildings. On the east, rather lower than the village and a little below the top of the ridge, is the spring, which issues from a cave. Below it are remains of a good-sized reservoir. There are many springs on the south and west, and caves in the southern side of the hill. Olives, figs, pears, apples, and vines are cultivated round the village and in the plain; there are also extensive corn-fields in the low ground."

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Jib had a population 465, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 643, still all Muslim, in 153 houses.

In a survey in 1945, El Jib had a population of 830 Arabs, and a total land area of 8,205 dunams. 1,132 dunams were designated for plantations and irrigable land, 4,754 for cereals, while 57 dunams were built-up area.

After 1967

After the 1948 termination of the British Mandate of Palestine, Jordan took control of al-Jib as part of the West Bank. In the 1967 Six-Day war, Israel occupied the West Bank. Since 1967, Israel confiscated 26.6% of Al Jib’s lands to establish the large urban Israeli settlements Givon (1978), Giv'on HaHadashah (1980) and Giv'at Ze'ev (1982)

Under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, 7.5% of the total village area was assigned as Area B, the remaining 92.5% became Area C, under full Israeli control.

Separation wall

The barrier in northern Jerusalem, which confines Al Jib to an enclave under Israeli control.

In 2005, Israel started the construction of a separation barrier around al-Jib, al-Judeira, Bir Nabala, Beit Hanina al-Balad and Kalandiya. The wall was build on Palestinian land seized by Military Orders. The wall completely surrounds the villages, forming an enclave. One effect is that it prevents the Palestinian residents without Israeli citizenship or permanent residency cards from using the nearby road-system serving Jerusalem and nearby Israeli settlements.

The wall has also divided the village of Al Jib. Part of their farm-land lies on the other side of the wall and only a limited number of residents have limited access. A complete neighborhood, Al Khalayleh with an estimated population of 700 citizens, is now located west of the Wall in a separate enclave between Israeli settlements. In April 2012, Israel demolished a number of houses in Al Khalayleh and displaced 67 Palestinian refugees from the neighborhood, most of whom were children. About half of Al Jib's total area, including Al Khalayleh, is located on the other side of the barrier.

Israel claims that it intends to build two alternate roads that will link the enclave to the rest of the West Bank to prevent its complete isolation. One will connect the enclave with Ramallah, which lies to its north, while the other will connect al-Jib to the Bedouin area, which lies to its west, by means of three underground passageways and two bridges. The road's construction will require complex engineering work and will cost tens of millions of shekels, so it is likely that the project will take a long time, if ever, to complete

B'Tselem points out that because thousands of the enclave's residents hold Israeli identity cards, they are entitled to free access to East Jerusalem by law, and that the barrier thus "will severely impair [their] human rights" by cutting off direct access.

Preservation

Al Jib is on the list of "Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites in the West Bank Governorates" compiled by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MOCIP) of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) due to the excavations of ancient Gibeon. During the second Intifada, the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange (PACE) brought together Palestinian youth and elders from the surrounding villages to repair and restore the ancient water pool and other sites around the village.

Bibliography

• (pp. 94, 95, 96, 99 164)

External links

• Welcome to al-Jib. PalestineRemembered
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Al Jib Village (Fact Sheet)
• Al Jib Village Profile. The Applied Research Institute (ARIJ), August 2012
• Al Jib Village Areal photo
• Locality Development Priorities and Needs in Al Jib