Deir Ballut

History

Sherds from the Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad/Abbasid and Crusader/Ayyubid eras have been found here.

Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi records in 1226, while Deir Ballut was under Mamluk rule, "Deir al-Ballut was a village of district around ar-Ramla."

Ottoman era

In 1870 Victor Guérin found it to be a village of one hundred and fifty people. However, judging by the extent of the ruins that covered the hill where it stood, Guérin thought it had once been a large city. Most houses were built with large stones.

In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as "a small village, partly ruinous, but evidently once a place of greater importance, with rock-cut tombs. The huts are principally of stone. The water supply is from wells." To the west of the village are rock-tombs, from a Christian age.

British Mandate era

Deir Ballut was the site of minor engagement between Turkish and British troops on the March 12, 1918.

In the a 1922 census of Palestine Deir Ballut had a population of 384 inhabitants, all Muslim, rising to 532 in the 1931 census, still all Muslim, in a total of 91 houses.

In 1945 the population was 720, all Muslim while the total land area was 14,789 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 508 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 3,488 for cereals, while 63 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

1948-1967

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

Post-1967

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