Beit Kahil


Beit Kahil is a Palestinian town in the Hebron Governorate in the southern West Bank, located seven kilometers northwest of Hebron.

History

noted that the place was apparently ancient, and suggested that Beit Kahil was to be recognized with the Latin Cela, described by Eusebius in his Onomasticon, rather than with the Biblical Keilah, which was already a ruin in Guérin's time.

Ottoman era

In the Ottoman census no. 289, p. 209; Bayt Khalil was located in the nahiya of Halil, and noted as Mazra’a land.
In 1863 Victor Guérin found that it had thirty houses, while an Ottoman village list from about 1870 counted 8 houses and a population of 22, though the population count included men only.
In 1883 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Beit Kahel as “a small village on a ridge, built of stone, with a well to the south. Apparently an ancient place, with rock-cut tombs.”

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Beit Kahil had a population of 336 inhabitants, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 452, still entirely Muslim, in 90 inhabited houses. In the latter census it was counted with Kh. Beit Kanun, Kh. Hawala and Kh. Tawas.
In the 1945 statistics the population of Beit Kahil was 570 Muslims, and the total land area was 5,795 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,359 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 1,785 were for cereals, while 26 dunams were built-up land.

1948-1967

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Beit Kahil came under Jordanian rule.
The Jordanian census of 1961 found 704 inhabitants in Beit Kahil.

Post-1967

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Beit Kahil has been under Israeli occupation.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Beit Kahil had a population of approximately 6,526 inhabitants in 2007. The population is made up of several clans, including al-Attawna, al-Assafra, al-Zuhoor, al-Judi, Barham and al-Khateeb. The town's total land area is 5,795 dunams.
In September, 2019, the Israelis detained several people from Beit Kahil, including the deputy mayor and his son, together with two others also from Beit Kahil.