Beit Sahour

Beit Sahour, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1525-6 (932 AH), Beit Sahur an-Nasara had 5 Christian and 7 Muslim households, increasing in 1538-9 (945 AH) to 8 Christian and 8 Muslim households.[11] By 1553-4 (961 AH) 13 Christian and 21 Muslim households were noted, and in 1562-3 (970 AH) 9 Christian and 17 Muslim households were counted.[11] In 1596, Beit Sahur an-Nasara was registered as a village in the nahiyah of Quds (Jerusalem) of the Liwa of Quds, with a total population of 24 households; 15 Muslim and 9 Christian. The villages paid taxes on the same products as the villagers of Beit Sahur al-Atiqah.[12]

The Franciscans ceased holding religious services at the shrine by Shepherd's Field around 1820. In 1864 a new Roman Catholic church and school were completed.[13]

An Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed that Beit Sahour el-foka ("the upper Beit Sahour") had a population of 37 "Latins" (Catholics) in 11 houses, and 187 "Greeks" (Eastern Orthodox) in 48 houses, bringing the total population of both Beit Sahours, el-foka and et-tahta, to 190 (men only) in 76 houses.[14][15]

In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Beit Sahur as:

This village is a sort of suburb of Bethlehem, situated on the same ridge, with the broad plateau east of it known as the 'Shepherd's Field' ... [with] the small Greek Church of the Grotto of the Shephard, a subterranean chapel reached by 20 steps, containing pictures and mosaic. Above the vault are ruins with a Latin altar. Bait Sahur contains a well-built modern house belonging to the Latin curé, and is surrounded with olives and vines.[16]

In 1896 the population of Beit Sahour was estimated to be about 861 persons.[17] A construction text, dating to 1897, engraved in the lintel of a door on Municipality Street has been examined, and was found to be a poem in 19th century Christian naskhi script.[18]

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bait Sahur had a population 1,519; 285 Muslims and 1,234 Christians,[19] increasing in the 1931 census to 1,942; 395 Muslims and 1,547 Christians, in a total of 454 houses.[20]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Beit Sahour was 2,770; 370 Muslims and 2,400 Christians,[21] who owned 6,946 (rural) and 138 (urban) dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[22] 1,031 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 3,641 for cereals,[23] while 100 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[24]

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

In 1961, the population of Beit Sahur was 5,316.[25]

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Beit Sahour has been under Israeli occupation. The population in the 1967 census was 5,380.[26] The original Christian Palestinian occupants are being driven out of the town, as Israeli settlements occupy land and Israeli courts rule Christian homes as illegal and subject to demolition.[10]

According to ARIJ, 52.8% of the village land is classified as being in Area A, while the remaining 47.2% is in Area C. From 1997 and onwards, Israel has confiscated hundred of dunams of village land for the construction of the Israeli settlement of Har Homa.[27]

In 1989, during the First Intifada, the Palestinian resistance (Unified National Leadership of the Uprising, UNLU) and Ghassan Andoni and Kamel Danoun, urged people to stop paying taxes to Israel, which inherited and modified the previous Jordanian tax-collection regime in the West Bank.[32] "No taxation without representation," said a statement from the organizers. "The military authorities do not represent us, and we did not invite them to come to our land. Must we pay for the bullets that kill our children or for the expenses of the occupying army?"[33] The people of Beit Sahour responded to this call with an organized citywide tax strike that included refusal to pay and file tax returns.

Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin responded: "We will teach them there is a price for refusing the laws of Israel."[34] The Israeli military authorities placed the town under curfew for 42 days, blocked food shipments into the town, cut telephone lines to the town, tried to bar reporters from the town, imprisoned ten residents (among them Fuad Kokaly and Rifat Odeh Kassis) and seized in house-to-house raids millions of dollars in money and property belonging to 350 families.[35] The Israeli military stopped the consuls-general of Belgium, Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Sweden when they attempted to go to Beit Sahour and investigate the conditions there during the tax strike.[36]

Israel's military occupation had the authority to create and enforce taxes beyond the baseline Jordanian code enacted in 1963 in areas formerly administered by that country, including Beit Sahour.[32] During the Intifada, they used that authority to impose taxes on Palestinians as collective punishment measures to discourage the Intifada, for instance "the glass tax (for broken windows), the stones tax (for damage done by stones), the missile tax (for Gulf War damage), and a general intifada tax, among others."[37]

The United Nations Security Council considered a resolution demanding that Israel return the property it confiscated during the Beit Sahour tax resistance. The United States vetoed the resolution, which was supported by the other eleven council members.[38]

According to tradition, St. Helena built a convent at the site, which is today known as the shepherd's cave.[43] The Franciscans acquired a shrine there in 1347.[13]

The new Greek Orthodox monastery, which includes the ancient church, was established through the efforts of Archimandrite Serapheim Savvaitis as a metochion of the Lavra of St. Sabbas between 1971-1989.

Chapel of the Shepherd's Field

The Catholic site belongs to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and includes the Chapel of the Shepherds' Field, along with two cave chapels and the ruins of a Byzantine monastery.

Within the environs of Beit Sahour is the ruin Khirbet Umm Toba. An archaeological survey-excavation was conducted at the site in 2010, 2013 and 2016 by Zubair Adawi on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), which yielded pottery from the Byzantine era.[44][45][46] Some had surmised that the site may have been the Caphartobas of Josephus.

Beit Sahour is twinned with many cities and communes across the world.[47][48]

City	Country	Date
Al Manama	Bahrain	1990
Fiorenzuola d'Arda	Italy	1990
Roman	France	1995
Korydallos	Greece	2000
Opsterland	Netherlands	2000
Concon	Chile	2001
Laconi	Italy	2001
Province of Piacenza	Italy	2003
Rimini	Italy	2003
Quatrro-Castella	Italy	2005
Vaulx-en-Velin	France	2006
Fuheis	Jordan	2008
Mira	Italy	2008
Anghiari	Italy	2009
Clichy	France	2009
Doha	Qatar	2009
San Fernando	Chile	2009
Xanten	Germany	2011
Alba Iulia	Romania	2015
Utena	Lithuania	2015
Tralee	Ireland	2019