Jiljilyya is located (horizontally) 14.11 kilometers (8.77 mi) northeast of
Ramallah. It is bordered by
Al Mazra'a ash Sharqiya to the east,
Sinjil to the east and north,
'Abwein to the north, west and south, and by
Silwad to the south.[1]
The village was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of
Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the Ottoman
tax registers as Jinjiliyya, being in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Quds, part of the liwa (district) of
Quds. It had a population of 8 households, all
Muslims. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops,
olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and/or beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 2,600
akçe.[6] Pottery sherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found here.[4]
In 1838
Edward Robinson noted Jiljilia on his travels in the region, and connected it with ancient
Gilgal.[7] He further noted it as a Muslim village, located in the Beni Zeid district, north of Jerusalem.[8]
In 1870
Victor Guérin found Djildjilia to have 200 inhabitants,[9] while an Ottoman village list of about the same year counted 14 houses and a population of 49 in dschildschilija, though the population count included only men.[10][11]
In 1882, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Jiljilia as: "A large village on the top of a high hill, with a
well to the south, and a few olives. The ridge is arable land."[12]
In 1896 the population of Dschildschilja was estimated to be about 138 persons.[13]
In the
1945 statistics, the population was 280 Muslims,[16] while the total land area was 7,283
dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[17] Of this, 1,897 were plantations and irrigable land, 1,940 for cereals,[18] while 16 dunams were classified as built-up (urban) areas.[19]
After the
1995 accords, 99.3% of village land was classified as
Area A, while the remaining 0.7% was classified as
Area B.[21]
Death of Omar Assad
In January 2022, 78-year-old Omar Assad died after being detained by Israeli soldiers. Assad had lived in the US from 1967, was a US citizen, and had returned to his childhood village for his retirement in 2010. The Israeli spokesman stated that Assad was alive when he was released, but this was contradicted by several eye-witnesses. The autopsy found that he had died from “a stress-induced heart attack probably brought on by being bound and gagged and held in a cold construction site.”[22][23]
In February, the US State Department said it wanted a “criminal investigation” into his death.[24]
In October, Israeli spokesperson claimed that a settlement had been reached with the Assad family, and that Israel would pay them 500,000 shekels, (~$141,000), in return for their withdrawal of the case against the Israeli state.[25] However, the family denied this, saying that they had rejected the offer.[26][27]
Albright, W.F. (1922). "Excavations and Results at Tell el-Fûl (Gibeah of Saul)". The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 4: iii+ix+xi+xiii+1–160.
doi:
10.2307/3768487.
JSTOR3768487.