Yaroun

Yaroun occupies a hill with elevation ranging from 750 to 900 meters above sea level. The main agricultural products of Yaroun are olives, wheat, and tobacco.

Yaroun lies on the border with Israel. It overlooks Saliha and Kafr Bir'im in the Israeli part of the border.

In 1596, it was named as a village, Yarun an-Nasara, in the Ottoman nahiya (subdistrict) of Tibnin under the liwa' (district) of Safad, with a population of 37 Muslim households and 20 Muslim bachelors, and 39 Christian households and 11 Christian bachelors. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, such as wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 7,247 akçe.[2][3]

In 1674, western travellers saw remains of a monastery and church near by, with fragments from many columns.[4]

In 1781 Nasif al-Nassar was killed here by Jazzar Pasha when their two armies met.[5]

In 1838, Edward Robinson noted it as "a large village".[4] Ernest Renan visited Yaroun during his mission to Lebanon and described what he found in his book Mission de Phénicie (1865-1874). He found many antiquities at Yaroun.[6]

On 31 December 1863, Louis Félicien de Saulcy, the French orientalist and archaeologist left Jish and arrived in Yaroun, and despite the heavy rain on that day, he examined the ruins of a temple, with a huge sarcophagi and sepulchral excavations cut into the rock, and a square well few meters deep, deducing that Yaroun was the Biblical town of Iaraoun, one of the cities of the Nephatli tribe mentioned in the Book of Joshua (xiv. 38).[7]

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it: “A stone village, containing about 200 Metawileh and 200 Christians ; a Christian chapel in the village. The village is situated on the edge of a plain, with vineyards and arable land; to the west rises a basalt-top called el Burj, full of cisterns, and supposed to be the site of an ancient castle ; there are large stones strewn about ; there are three large birkets and many cisterns to supply water; one of the birkets is ruined."[8]

SWP also found here the remains of an ancient Church, with Greek inscriptions.[9]

By the 1945 statistics the population was counted with Saliha and Maroun al-Ras, and totalled 1070 Muslims[10] with 11,735 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[11] Of this, 7,401 dunams were allocated to cereals, 422 dunams were irrigated or used for orchards,[12] while 58 dunams were built-up (urban) area.[13]

Yaroun is divided between Atheists, Shia Muslims and catholic christians

While the majority of Yarounis visit Yaroun for the summer, approximately 60% to 70% of Yaroun natives reside outside of Lebanon, most of them reside in countries such as Australia, USA, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, among other South American and African countries. Many wars happened in South Area of Lebanon and the economic development is weak therefore many young Yarounis choose to relocate to Beirut to continue their higher educations because of the lack of universities in the South and after that they choose to emigrate to the USA, Canada or Europe and some of them settle in the Gulf, and they visit their families back in Yaroun to keep ties with their relatives and bear in mind that immigrants have an Economic Impact on their families (Money Transfers or Allowances), and this will help their Families to pay their expenses and to let them stay in Yaroun.

In July 2006, Yaroun, like many other villages that string Lebanon's southern border, such as Ain Ebel, Debel, Qaouzah, and Rmaich, were caught by the 2006 Lebanon War between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.[14]

On the 23 July, Israeli strikes killed 5 civilians in Yaroun, the victims were aged between 6 months and 75 years old.[15]

• Eid Hourany (1940 – 2008), French and Lebanese nuclear physicist
• Youssef Hourany (1931 – 2019), Lebanese writer, archeologist and historian
• Dominique Hourani (born 1985), Lebanese recording artist, actress, beauty queen, and former model
• Mohamad Kdouh (born 1997), Lebanese footballer[16]

• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 4: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Yaroun, Localiban