Jalbun (Arabic:جلبون) is aPalestinian village in the West Bank, located 13 km east of the city ofJenin in the northernWest Bank. According to thePalestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 2,493 inhabitants in mid-year 2006 and 2,813 in 2017.[1][3] The primary healthcare facilities for Jalbun are described by the Ministry of Health as level 2.[4]
In 1838 it was noted as an inhabited village,Jelbon,[9] located in the District of Jenin, also calledHaritheh esh-Shemaliyeh district.[10]
In 1870Victor Guérin found that Jalbun was divided into two quarters, with houses built ofadobe. In the centre was an ancientmosque, situated east to west, which Guérin took to be a formerchurch. There were ancientcisterns dug into rocks.[11]
In 1870/1871 (1288AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in thenahiya (sub-district) of Shafa al-Qibly.[12]
In 1882 Jalbun was described as a “small village in a remote position on one of the spurs of the Gilboa range. It is surrounded with plough-land, and built of mud and stone, and supplied bycisterns”," in thePEF'sSurvey of Western Palestine.[13]
In the1944/5 statistics the population of Jalbun, (including Kh. el Mujaddaa) was 610, all Muslims,[17] with 33,959dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[18] 243 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 19,104 for cereals,[19] while 25 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[20]
Israeli forces attacked Jalbun village, with small arms, on the 5 December 1949, they then expelled the inhabitants from their village causing fatal casualties amongst the villagers. The Jordanian government strongly protested against unwarranted Israeli action and called the UN Secretary-General to notify theUnited Nations Security Council to take prompt and strict measures to return expelled Palestinians to their village, to hand back their looted belongings, and to compensate the villagers for all losses and damages.[21]
The Jordanian census of 1961 found 826 inhabitants.[22]
Jalbun's residents have their origins in settlers from Qabatiya, some of which originally came fromIraq.[23] The majority of Jalbun's inhabitants belong to the Dar Abu Rub (Rbubiya) clan, which is one of four prominent clans in Qabatiya.[24]
Among villages in the vicinity ofMount Gilboa and northernSamaria, the Dar Abu Rub clan is regarded as holy, with various folklore stories associated with them.[24]
^Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p.25
^Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". inShomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 349
^abזהרוני, אילן (1996). "משפחות קדושות ועושי נפלאות באזור הגלבוע" [Holy families and miracle workers in the Gilboa region]. In שילר, אלי (ed.).דת ופולחן וקברי קדושים מוסלמים בארץ-ישראל. אריאל: כתב עת לידיעת ארץ ישראל (in Hebrew). ירושלים: הוצאת ספרים אריאל. pp. 165–173.
