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32°7′37.32″N 34°53′43.48″E / 32.1270333°N 34.8954111°E / 32.1270333; 34.8954111 Wadi Qana (Template:Lang-ar) or Nahal Qana (Template:Lang-he) is a wadi, with an intermittent stream meandering westwards from Huwara south of Nablus in the West Bank down to Jaljulia in Israel where it flows into the Yarkon River, of which it is a tributary.

Geography and population

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Wadi Qana begins in the hills of Mount Gerizim, in the West Bank, flows in a general ENE-WSW direction and reaches the Sharon plain near Jaljulia, where it empties into the Yarkon just west of the Yarkon interchange. The northern section forms the southern boundary of Kafr Thulth with its harsh rocky limestone and karst terrain.The area encompasses approximately 229 sq.kms.

As of 2018, the population of the area has been estimated at 176,580 Palestinians in 56 communities and 58,195 Israelis in 15 settlements.

Early history

In 1922 the French biblical scholar and geographer Félix-Marie Abel identified stone structures, some consisting of piles seven courses high, in Wadi Qana as megaliths forming a dolmen necropolis (nécropole dolménique).

By the fourth millenium, human use of the wadi is attested by prehistorical artifacts found in karstic cave lying high on a slope in the wadi some 25 kms east of the Mediterranean on the western fringe of the Samaria hills. The existence of the cave was came to the attention of speleologists from the Israel Cave Research Center (ICRC) of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel when some villagers from Kafr Laqif told them of a deep cave in the wadi, which they then discovered after a two day search the following year. Placing mortuary sites at a distance from settlements is a characteristic innovation of the Levantine Chalcolithic period. and this one was could be accessed only by crawling through a 15 metre long tunnel, which then opened up into a 500 square metre subterranean hall.

Over several years, a team of Israeli archaeologists, led by Avi Gopher, excavated it and three strata were brought to light, indicating it had undergone successive occupation from 6th millenium BCE, beginning with the Yarmukian culture, through to the Chalcolithic, and lastly the early Bronze Age1. The Chalcolithic remains were particularly rich, with a cemetery yielding up, aside from ossuaries, pithoi, churns and varieties of creamware, 8 ring-shaped objects, mostly cast from electrum, with a 70% gold and 30% silver content. The archaeologists opined that the most probable source for the gold ingots was Egypt where ring-shaped metallic valuables are attested from pictograms of imperial trade. Those in the Qadi Qana cave are the first known examples from the Levant. A further significant feature from the find was that the person buried with these objects probably had a high rank, which in turn would mean that social development in the area was more advanced than hitherto thought.

According to the biblical narrative of the allotment of territories following Joshua’s conquest in the Book of Joshua, Wadi Qana (naḥal qānāh,'the brook Kanah' Joshua 16:8, 17:9) - translated as φάραγγα Καρανὰ (the gully of Kanah) in the Septuagint -served as the boundary running between the northern Manasseh and the southern Ephraim. The description of the border is somewhat complicated, since they overlap with the former Amorite Tappuah being Ephraimite but in Manesseh territory.

A tradition among the population of the Wadi Qana ecosystem, covering the area to the north of the gully itself, which has a scant 139 hectares of arable land, holds that their ancestors once occupied Zakur (itself now abandoned). It has been suggested that this dispersion may have had its roots in a strong blood feud, and that the people of Zakur moved first to Kafr Thulth and, finding no good land, then spread out to dwell in five hamlets adjacent to Wadi Qana. The dominant group at Kafr Thulth itself, those with the best pastures, are the Gharaba family, who also own the best land in Wadi Qana’s tributaries. Down to the mid 1980s, 50 families lived in the wadi itself, in a hamlet with rock structures adjacent to the stream known as Wadi Qana.

Area development history

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The West Bank part of Wadi Qana runs through a fertile valley and constituted one of the most notable natural attractions in terms of the beauty of its landscape in Palestine, given its abundance of springs, extent of its well-watered land, and plentiful trees. The area has traditionally furnished local Palestinians with important land for grazing livestock, harvesting agricultural products, especially citrus, and for leisure (bathing). Many families also used it to dwell along the wadi's reaches. Its water was drawn in order to irrigate vegetable plots. It afforded rich grazing for flocks, carrying an estimated 50,000 sheep down to the early 1980s, compared to the 3,000 Palestinians still manage to tend in the wadi in recent years(2017). The wadi runs between the Palestinian administrative zones of the Salfit and Qalqilya Governorates.

In 1967, the area came under Israeli occupation in the wake of the Six Day War.

In the 1970s Israel began deep drilling in the wadi area with its rich groundwater resources and one consequence was that many springs and wells used by local Palestinians dried up.The central sector of the wadi, east of Qalqiliya and designated as Area C after the Oslo Accords, was mostly owned by the villagers of Deir Istiya. In 1978 it began to establish Israeli settlements on the high banks on either side of the wadi. Karnei Shomron was set up in that year on lands confiscated from four Palestinian villages, Jinsafut, Deir Istiya, Kafr Laqif and Hajjah, while Immanuel (1983) was established on lands taken from Deir Istiya and Immatain. To the south, both Yaqir (1981) and Nofim were established on territory appropriated from Deir Istiya.. Later, further illegal outposts such as Alonei Shilo (1999), Yair Farm (1999) and El Matan (2000) were set up in the wadi zone.

Water pollution and settlement

All of these settlements discharged their sewage waste waters into the Wadi Qana stream, contaminating its use for Palestinian irrigation. In 1995 it was estimated that Yaqir, Karnei Shomron, and Immanuel alone annually generated approximately 908,700 cubic meters of wastewater directly into the Wadi. This combination of polluting discharges from settlements, which was only partially resolved in 2006 when the settlements were brought in to the formal sewage system, and the reduced water flow caused by Israeli drilling undermined the traditional exploitation of its waters for irrigating vegetable crops, and forced some 50 families resident in the wadi to shift out, moving to Deir Istiya. The plan of Israel's "Separation Barrier" cuts out Deir Istiya from the wadi, leaving it on the 'Israeli' side of that sector of the West Bank. When the Kana Stream Restoration Authority (2006) was inaugurated, one of its purposes, according to leaders of the settlement councils, was to block what they regarded as attempts by 'Palestinian elements' to assume control of the wadi's stream. The Israel Nature and Parks Authority set aside 1,500 hectares of the wadi floor for a park called the Nahal Qana Reserve, and in 2005 an annual spring walk takes place 2006, under the auspices of the 2006, Karnei Shomron Council, during which local Palestinians, including landowners, are not permitted to access the wadi. Further projects, with large investments from the Israeli government and the Jewish National Fund, aim at developing it as a major Israeli tourist site. That part of the wadi's village lands lying in Area C may not, under the Israeli dispensation, be used for Palestinian commercial or industrial projects: The one remaining option of using it for agricultural purposes - planting olive trees, for example, is, however, hampered by severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on the grounds that such activities damage the wadi's natural flora, the topography, and the character of the habitat.'

Nature reserve

The nature reserve was established on the agricultural lands of the Palestinian village of Deir Istiya. As of 2006, the area around the West Bank area of Wadi Qana has been designated a nature reserve by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. A hundred Jewish homes have been built inside the park. Alonei Shilo was built as an Israeli outpost within the reserve and then subsequently gained Israeli authorization by reclassifying it as part of the Karnei Shomron settlement. Land from the reserve was also allocated to the El Matan outpost. Amira Hass cites the Wadi Qana reserve as an example of Israeli efforts to "narrow the Palestinian expanse" by creating nature reserves and that the goal of the reserves is "to dispossess Palestinians".

In 2011 the Israeli National Parks Authority uprooted 1,000 olive trees planted by Wadi Palestinians and issued a directive for the grubbing up of a further 1,400. The reason given was ecological. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Israel handed down a judgment that the directive could apply only to saplings younger than 3 years. The following year Israeli park wardens nonetheless marked for destruction 2,100 olive trees, many of them older than the 3 year limit. On 23 January 2014, rangers with bulldozers under military escort ripped out from 500 to 800 olive trees which were then transported to an unknown location. Tear canisters were fired at the Palestinians protesting the measure. In August of that year, settlers constructed a new road, using bulldozers, through the wadi, without any permit. The master plan envisages a ring road connecting all the outposts and settlements, while blocking the one existing access road Palestinians may use.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel has destroyed Palestinian irrigation channels in the Wadi Qana area "under the pretext of environmental protection". B'tselem reported that while the wadi area was actively being developed into a tourist site, Israeli authorities were issuing orders prohibiting any Palestinian development of the land. Friends of the Earth International reported that Palestinian agricultural projects have been destroyed by the Israeli authorities "under the guise of nature protection", calling the creation of such nature reserves "a significant tool of ethnic cleansing for the Israeli occupying forces."

Wadi Qanah Cave

In 1980, speleologists from the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel were told by villagers from Kafr Laqif in the West Bank about a karstic cave in the wadi. The cave, located some 25 km east of Tel Aviv, was hard to find and even harder to enter, but once inside they and a team of archaeologists discovered remains from three prehistorical periods: the Neolithic finds were the oldest, dating to c. 9000 years ago; from the Chalcolithic period (4th millennium BCE) they found human burials; and the most recent findings were from the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE). The Chalcolithic burials made use of ossuaries and the deceased were interred along with funerary offerings, including pottery and objects made of gold, copper and ivory. Eight circlets, two of them made of almost pure gold (89-98%) and six of electrum (c. 70% gold and 30% silver), weighing together almost a kilogram, were found next to one set of skeletal remains. The researchers argued that the metal originated from mines in southern Egypt, geographically the nearest and altogether the most likely source, and the look and size of the circlets (just under 5 cm outer diametre), based on parallels with late Egyptian pictograms, seem to indicate that they were ingots rather than jewelry. They are the only gold objects from the Levant predating the Early Bronze Age, the oldest ones found in Samaria, and among the oldest in the world. The archaeologists who excavated the cave, Avi Gopher and Tsvika Tsuk, argue that the gold, found next to male human remains, must be seen as status symbols of the deceased.

Hebrew Bible

According to the biblical Book of Joshua, Wadi Qana (naḥal qānāh,'the brook Kanah' Joshua 16:8, 17:9) served as the boundary between the Tribe of Ephraim and the Tribe of Manasseh.

Notes

1. ’Mit dem “Bach Kana” ist zweifellos das heutige Wādī Kānah gemeint.’
2. Identified by Israel Finkelstein as the present Tel Abu Zarad

Citations

1. Sharif 2017, p. 135,n.51.
2. ^ B'tselem 2015. sfn error: no target: CITEREFB'tselem2015 (help)
3. Grossman & Safrai 1980, pp. 447–448.
4. ^ Naser & Ghanem 2018, p. 2.
5. Fraser 2018, pp. 14, 68–69.
6. ^ Gopher et al. 1990, p. 437.
7. ^ Levy 2003, p. 60.
8. Gopher & Tsuk 1996, p. 1.
9. Gopher et al. 1990, p. 440.
10. Gopher et al. 1990, pp. 436–437.
11. Gopher et al. 1990, p. 438.
12. Gopher et al. 1990, p. 441.
13. Woudstra 1981, p. 262.
14. Neef 1995, p. 138.
15. Neef 1995, pp. 155–158, 319–320.
16. Van Der Steen 2004, pp. 96–97.
17. Crowley 1992, p. 237.
18. Abel 1938, pp. 475–476.
19. Grossman & Safrai 1980, p. 459.
20. Grossman & Safrai 1980, pp. 455–458.
21. Baltzer 2019, p. 251. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBaltzer2019 (help)
22. ^ 'Deir Istiya Town Profile,' Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem 2013 pp.20-22.
23. Naser & Ghanem 2018, p. 5.
24. Isaac, Qumsieh & Owewi 1995, p. 8.
25. ^ Edna Gorney, ‘Roots of Identity, Canopy of Collision: Re-Visioning Trees as an Evolving National Symbol Within the Israeli -Palestinian Conflict in Cristina Joanaz de Melo, Estelita Vaz, Lígia M. Costa Pinto eds., Environmental History in the Making: Volume II: Acting, Springer, 2016 ISBN 978-3-319-41139-2 pp.327-343 pp.339-340.
26. Amira Hass, 'In West Bank, Jewish Settlers Recruit Nature to Their Mission – With the High Court’s Consent,' Haaretz 19 January 2020
27. "OCHA Weekly report (24-30 November 2010)" (PDF). OCHAoPt. 2019-03-12. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
28. "Environmental Nakba: Environmental injustice and violations of the Israeli occupation of Palestine" (PDF). Friends of the Earth International. September 2013.
29. Gopher, Avi. "The Nahal Qanah Cave: Earliest Gold in the Southern Levant". Tel Aviv University. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
30. ^ "Ancient Gold - Rare Finds from the Nahal Qanah Cave (exhibition, 29 Jan 1991 - 26 Apr 1992)". Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
31. ^ Circlets. Nahal Qanah Cave, Western Samaria. Retrieved 2019-12-27. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
32. Levy 2003, pp. 60–61.
33. "Chalcolithic: Industrial Arts". Encyclopedia of Prehistory. Vol. 8: South and Southwest Asia. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publ. with Human Relations Area Files, Inc. 2003. pp. 60–61. ISBN 0-306-46262-1. Retrieved 2019-12-27. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
34. Marten Woudstra, The Book of Joshua, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1981 p.262.

Sources

• Abel, Félix-Marie (1938). Géographie de la Palestine. Vol. 2 (3 ed.). Librairie Le Coffre. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Wadi Qana – From Palestinian agricultural valley to settlements' tourism park". B'tselem. 23 April 2015. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Crowley, Edward J. (1992). "The Book of Joshua". In Suggs, M. Jack; Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob; Mueller, James R (eds.). The Oxford Study Bible: Revised English Bible with Apocrypha. OUP(USA) . pp. 220–245. ISBN 978-0-195-29000-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Fraser, James A. (2018). Dolmens in the Levant. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-37542-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gopher, Ari; Shalev, Sariel; Gophna, Ram; Tsuk, Tsevikah (August–October 1990). "Earliest Gold Artifacts in the Levant". Current Anthropology. 31 (4): 436-443 =. JSTOR 2743275. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date format (link)
• Gopher, Avi; Tsuk, Tsevikah (1996). The Naḥal Qanah Cave: Earliest Gold in the Southern Levant. Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University. ISBN 978-9-654-40005-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gorney, Edna (2016). "Roots of Identity, Canopy of Collision: Re-Visioning Trees as an Evolving National Symbol Within the Israeli -Palestinian Conflict". In de Melo, Cristina Joanaz; Vaz, Estelita; Costa Pinto, Lígia M. (eds.). Environmental History in the Making: Volume II: Acting. Springer. pp. 327–343. ISBN 978-3-319-41139-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Grossman, David; Safrai, Zeev (4 October 1980). "Satellite Settlements in Western Samaria". Geographical Review. 70: 446–461. JSTOR 214078. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hass, Amira (19 January 2020). "In West Bank, Jewish Settlers Recruit Nature to Their Mission – With the High Court's Consent". Haaretz. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Isaac, Jad; Qumsieh, Violet; Owewi, Maher (1995). "Assessing the Pollution of the West Bank Water Resources" (PDF). Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem. pp. 1–14.
• Levy, Thomas E. (2003). "Chalcolithic". In Peregrine, Peter N.; Ember, Melvin (eds.). Encyclopedia of Prehistory. Vol. 8. Kluwer Publishers/ Plenum Publishers. pp. 56–73. ISBN 978-0-306-46262-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Makdisi, Saree (2010). Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-33844-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Naser, Shawkat; Ghanem, Marwan (2018). "Environmental and Socio- Economic Impact of Wastewater in Wadi- Qana Drainage Basin". Palestine Journal of Geographical Research. 1 (1): 1–7. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Neef, Heinz-Dieter (1995). Ephraim: Studien zur Geschichte des Stammes Ephraim von der Landname bis zur frühen Königszeit. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-110-14756-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rinat, Zafrir (28 December 2018). "Israeli Settlers Who Build in West Bank Nature Reserves Now Facing Trial". Haaretz. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sharif, Yara (2017). Architecture of Resistance: Cultivating Moments of Possibility within the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-52427-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Van Der Steen, E. J. (2004). Tribes and Territories in Transition: The Central East Jordan Valley in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age:a Study of the Sources. Peeters Publishers . ISBN 978-9-042-91385-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Woudstra, Marten (1981). The Book of Joshua. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-802-82525-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14: IAA, Wikimedia commons

• Rivers of Israel
• Rivers of the State of Palestine