Palestine grid 155/199 Name meaning Olive | Governorate Tulkarm | |
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Weather 19°C, Wind SW at 19 km/h, 68% Humidity | ||
Zeita (Arabic: زيتا) is a Palestinian town in the Tulkarm Governorate in the eastern West Bank, located 11 kilometers South-east of Tulkarm. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Zeita had a population of 2,852 inhabitants in 2007. 21.5% of the population of Zeita were refugees in 1997. The healthcare facilities for Zeita are designated as MOH level 2.
Contents
Map of Zeita
History
Zeita is an ancient village where marble Corinthian capitals have been reused in a local Maqam.
Ottoman era
The village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine in 1517. In the 1596 Ottoman tax records, it appeared under the name of Zaita, located in the Nahiya Qaqun, in the Nablus Sanjak. It had a population of 91 Muslim and 7 Christian households. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a press for olive oil or grape syrup; and jizya of 3,440 akçe.
Zeita appears on sheet 45 Jacotin's map drawn-up during Napoleon's invasion in 1799, though its position is not accurate. In 1870 Victor Guérin found here a village with 600 inhabitants. He further noted: Here I found, just as at Jett, an ancient capital hollowed out to make a mortar, and used for the same purpose. A very good well, constructed of cut stone, seems ancient."
In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as: "a good-sized village on high ground at the edge of the plain. It is surrounded with fig-gardens, and has olives to the south. It would appear to be an ancient place, having tombs to the east. The supply is principally from wells, but there is a small spring ('A in esh Shabutbut) on the south-west. [..] Two sacred places exist to the south side of the village."
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Zeita had a population of 1,087, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 1,165 persons, all Muslim, living in 237 houses.
In 1945 the population of Zeita was 1,780, all Muslims, with 6,410 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 782 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 5,120 used for cereals, while 33 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
1948–67
In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Zeita came under Jordanian rule, together with the rest of the West Bank.
Post-1967
After the Six-Day War in 1967, Zeita has been under Israeli occupation.