Beit Iksa (;) is a Palestinian village in the Jerusalem Governorate, located northwest of Jerusalem in the West Bank.
The village is surrounded on all sides by the Israeli West Bank barrier, and outside Palestinians are denied access through the one Israeli checkpoint leading to it. In 2014 Israeli military authorities announced they would confiscate a further 3,167 acres of Beit Iksa lands, leaving the township, according to the village head, Saada al-Khatib, as a 2,500-dunum area.
Beit Iksa contains two primary schools run by the Palestinian National Authority. Students attending secondary school travel to Jerusalem or nearby towns for education.
Location
Beit Iksa is a Palestinian village located (horizontally) north-west of Jerusalem. It is bordered by Beit Hanina al Balad and Shu'fat to the east, An Nabi Samwil to the north, Beit Surik and Lifta to the west.
Etymology
In the 1870s, locals informed Clermont-Ganneau that the village's alternative name was Umm-el-ela. Beni Zeid settlers from the north who obtained permission for the site gave the village a new name, Beit Iksa. During the Crusader period, the village was known as Jenanara, according to its inhabitants.
History
Beit Iksa lies on one of the historical routes that joined the Mediterranean coastal plain with Jerusalem, and archeological excavations conducted south of the village have yielded remains from the Hellenistic, Early Roman, late Byzantine and Umayyad periods, which the archaeologists believe belonged to an ancient settlement close by on the southwest outskirts of Beit Iksa.
Ottoman era
In 1517, the village was incorporated into the Ottoman empire with the rest of Palestine.
In 1552, Beit Iksa was an inhabited village. Haseki Hürrem Sultan, the favourite wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, endowed the tax revenues of Beit Iksa to its Haseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem. Administratively, Beit Iksa belonged to the District of Jerusalem. During this time, as in later periods, the residents of the village cultivated the lands of Kharruba.
In the 1596 tax-records it appeared under the name of Bayt Kisa, located in the Nahiye of Jerusalem in the Sanjak of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. It had a population of 79 households, all Muslims. The inhabitants paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, orchard, goats or bee hives, and a press for olives or grapes; a total of 18,000 akçe.
In 1838, Beit Iksa was noted as a Muslim village, part of the El-Kuds district.
In 1841 a local leader (nāzir), Abd al-Qadir al-Khatib, built an Ottoman castle located in the southern part of the village, while one of his brother built a smaller version five years later. In 1863, the French explorer Victor Guérin passed by the village and was told it had 300 inhabitants. He noted that the surroundings were cultivated with vines and olive trees. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that "Bet Iksa" had 70 houses and a population of 147, though the population count included only men. According to Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, he was informed in 1874 that the inhabitant belonged to the Beni Zeid tribe and that the village earlier had been named Umm el Ela.
In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described it as a "village of moderate size, with stone houses, and a well on the north, near which is a tree sacred to an otherwise unknown prophet, Nabī Leimûun. There are a few olives round the village."
Around 1896 the population of Beit Iksa was estimated to be about 714 persons.
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, "Bait Iksa" had a population of 791, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to a population of 1003, in 221 houses.
In the 1945 statistics, Beit Iksa had a population of 1,410, all Muslims, with 8,179 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,427 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 2,690 used for cereals, while 43 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
Jordanian era
In April 1948, most of the villagers fled following the fall of Deir Yassin and the Haganah entered the village destroying many buildings. In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Beit Iksa came under Jordanian rule. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950.
In 1961, the population of Beit Iksa was 1,177.
After 1967
Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Beit Iksa has been under Israeli occupation.