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Nablus (also spelled Nabulus) (Arabic: نابلس; pronounced Naablus or Naabliss) or Shechem (Hebrew שכם pronounced Shchem) is a major city in the West Bank and lies 63 km north of Jerusalem. At over 100,000 inhabitants, it comprises the second largest Palestinian population center after East Jerusalem. The city lies between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. The biblical city of Shechem is located on the site known as Tel Balatah, in the eastern section of the modern city. An ancient city with a rich history, Nablus is a site of religious significance to the three major monotheistic faiths, and is also a scene of political instability related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Features

Nablus is the site of An-Najah National University, the largest Palestinian university. It is also the location of the Palestine Stock Exchange. Nablus is an agricultural and commercial trade center dealing in traditional industries such as production of soap, olive oil, wine, and handicrafts. Other industries include furniture production, tile production, stone quarrying, textile manufacturing and leather tanning. The city is also a regional trading center for live produce. There are three refugee camps just outside the city, which were built for the Palestinian refugees of 1948. These camps are Ein Beit el Ma, Balata and Askar Al Quadim and Askar Al Jadid. Together they have more than 34,000 inhabitants. Nablus is famous for the architecture of its market, the Kasbah in the old city, and also for the culinary specialty of knafeh, a pastry dessert drenched in syrup and served in square-cut slices fresh from the oven.

Geography and climate

Nablus lies in a strategic position at a junction between two ancient commercial roads; one linking the Israeli coast to the Jordan valley, the other linking Nablus to the Galilee in the north, and the Negev to the south through the mountains. The entire Nablus district is 605 square kilometers, while Nablus city is 28.5 square kilometers. Nablus is surrounded by mountains on all sides. The length of the mountain chain is about 65 km from north to south. Its width is about 55 km from west to east. Ebal, the northern mountain, is the highest peak in this chain at 940 meters, while Gerizim, the southern mountain, is 881 meters high. The city of Nablus is erected between these two mountains, and its buildings cover a fertile valley between the two.

Demographics

The Nablus district has 205,392 inhabitants, including refugee camps and surrounding villages. The estimated population of Nablus city is 104,596, with a majority of Muslim and a minority of Christian Palestinian Arabs, as well as a small Samaritan community. The population of Nablus city comprises 34% of the district. The entire Nablus district contains 14 Israeli settlements, with a total population of 10,000 and two of the largest Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, Askar and Balata, which compromise about 8% of the total district population.

History

The ancient city of Shechem dates back an estimated four thousand years. According to the Hebrew Bible, at Shechem, Abram "built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him . . . and had given that land to his descendants" (Gen 12:6-7). This was the first recorded place where Abram stopped when he and Sarah and Lot and their entourage entered the land. On this occasion, God confirmed to Abram the promise He had first made to him in Ur of the Chaldees, that He would give him this land. It is possible that Abram climbed nearby Mount Ebal to view his inheritance, much of which could be seen from that peak. Nablus was the the first capital of the Israelites. The Bible states that Abraham traveled through Shechem on his way to Canaan and offered his first sacrifice to God. After the conquest of Canaan, Joshua assembled the Israelites here and encouraged them to follow the Mosaic Laws. During the period of the Judges, Abimelech was crowned king. An influential commercial center, the city prospered from trade in locally produced grapes, olives, wheat, and livestock from the Middle Bronze Age into the Late Hellenic Period (ca. 1900–100 B.C.E.). Archaeological excavations have revealed that the city was destroyed and rebuilt 22 times, until its final destruction in the second century C.E. Among the city’s visible remains are a series of defensive walls and gates, a palace or governor’s house, a residential quarter, and a portion of a temple to Zeus commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century C.E. Nablus was founded in the year 72 by the emperor Titus as a Roman city, Flavia Neapolis ("New city of the imperator Flavius") west of the site of the Biblical city of Shechem. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the emperor Zeno built a church on the summit of Mount Gerizim in response to a revolt, but the church (called Maria Theotokos) was destroyed after the Arab conquest of the city in 636. The city was then renamed Nablus (similar to 'Neapolis' except for the substitution of the letter 'B', as there is no 'P' in Arabic). The city was occupied by Crusaders in 1099 under the command of Tenecrad who renamed the site Naples. (The name of the Italian city Naples also derives from "Neapolis".) The Crusaders built a number of churches in Nablus, and with its fortified citadel, the city was a major center of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, but their rein came to an end in 1187 when they were expelled by Saladin. During Ottoman rule, Nablus was the first capital of one of four districts in the Syria-Palestine province. After Word War I, Palestine became a British Mandate, and Nablus became a point of resistance against the British. Also, an earthquake in 1927 damaged many of the city's buildings, which were subsequently rebuilt but lost their previous picturesque character. The city came under Jordanian occupation following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and was later captured by Israel in 1967 during the Six-Day War.

Religious Roots

The city has a long biblical history, and has major significance in Judaism, and is important to Christianity and Islam. Besides Abraham's ties to the area, the city contains religious sites such as Joseph's Tomb, Jacob's Well, the site of Dinah's rape, location of the Middle Bronze Gate, where the Israelites rejected Rehoboam and also the location of the destroyed Samaritan temple. Near a Greek Orthodox monastery there is a well associated with that of the Biblical figure Jacob. In the New Testament, this is the well at which Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman. A holy site nearby is throught by Jews to be the Tomb of Joseph; who is also revered by Muslims as a prophet. The site has seen much friction between Israelis and Palestinians; from 1980-2000 the Israeli army maintained an armed guard there. At the beginning of the 2nd Intifada, the Tomb of Joseph was destroyed by Palestinian demonstrators during an exchange with the IDF, in a move that embittered many Jews and embarrassed the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership promised to rebuild the site, although it is not clear if the proposed replacement structure is an actual mosque. Mount Gerizim in Nablus is also a site of worship for the Samaritan community, where they held jurisdiction of some lands in the area at various points in history.

Nablus and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

The city's unemployment rates have increased dramatically in recent years, rising from 14.2% in 1997 to an estimate of 60% in 2004. It is estimated that the unemployment in the old city and in the refugee camps is as high as 80%. Due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the city was closed off by the IDF. The city's encirclement with checkpoints is cited by the United Nations as a reason for high unemployment and a "devastated" economy . Checkpoints around Nablus restrict traveling of residents to and from the city (and there is a ban on vehicles, only pedestrians can cross checkpoints). Around 400 Palestinians (including armed fighters as well as unarmed civilians and children) from Nablus have been killed by IDF military operations against militants during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Israeli soldiers along with Jewish settlers have also been killed by members of militant groups that originate from there. . In March 2002, after a suicide bombing in Kibbutz Metzer in which five Israelis were killed, the IDF launched a military operation focused on the casbah in the center of Nablus city and on the nearby Balata refugee camp, where many residents are members of Hamas and Fatah, in a repeat of a similiar operation in 2001. The IDF took control of the city and imposed a month-long curfew, arresting at least ten Palestinians suspected of involvement in militant activities. In April, following the Netanya suicide attack, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, in which Nablus was one of the cities targetted in a massive military operation. At least 25 Palestinians, both militants and civilians, were killed in the Nablus area during that month . IDF withdrawal from Nablus is still pending negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli allegations regarding Nablus

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an Israeli NGO, alleged in 2002 that Nablus was "the infrastructure center of Palestinian terrorists". The organization stated that "Nablus constitutes the main infrastructure of Palestinian terrorism and the location of the main headquarters of the terrorist organizations leaderships in the West Bank." The report continues that "hundreds of gunmen in the city" belong to militant organizations such as "Hamas, PFLP, DFLP, PDA, the PFLPGC/ Jibril Front and the "People's HQ" (former Communists)." The list of charges by this NGO against Nablus included:

• Most of the explosive charges and explosive belts used for the Hamas suicide bombings in Israel, including the attack in Haifa (December 2001, 15 Israelis killed) and the "Passover Massacre" in Netanya (27 March, 2002, 28 Israelis killed) were produced in Nablus.
• The Hamas activists in Nablus who constitute in practice the organization's leadership in the West Bank, masterminded and directed from the city areas which served as its main headquarters, most of the attacks which the movement carried out in Israel and in the West Bank since the outbreak of the current confrontation with the Palestinians, e.g. Emmanuel (December 2001, 11 Israelis killed, and 27 wounded), Hamra in the Jordan Valley (February 2002, 3 Israelis killed), Elon Moreh (28 March, 2002, 4 Israelis killed).
• Nablus constituted the center of knowhow for the production and operation of the rockets in the West Bank.

Inner city conflict

Since late July 2003, Nablus has also been afflicted by armed gang war, waged by Palestinian militias, local bandits, and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a paramilitary organization linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah which has also carried out suicide bombings. Arafat appointed a mayor, Ghassan Shakaa, and a governor, Mahmoud Aloul. Following the assassination of his brother by al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, Nablus's mayor, Ghassan Shakaa, published an open letter via the press - in which he calls for the Palestinian Authority to restore order in the torn city. Taysir Naserallah, a leading representative of Fatah in Nablus, said that the repeated Israeli military presence in the city, compounded by months of curfews and economic collapse, had brought about the chaos.

In February 2004 Shakaa filed his resignation from office, after the Palestinian Authority (PA) did nothing to stop the armed militias of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades from rampaging through the city and attacking its residents. Shakaa avoided directly blaming Arafat, but hinted that the PA was the one to blame for the chaos and anarchy ravaging the city of Nablus. In his resignation letter he wrote:

"I see my city collapsing and I don't want to stand idly by and watch this collapse... My resignation is a warning bell to the Palestinian Authority and the residents of Nablus, because both of them are doing nothing for this city." .

As of April 1, 2004 Dr. Hussein Al-Araj became Acting Mayor. Municipal elections in Nablus and elsewhere occured in May 2005.

External links

• Official Nablus website
• Nablus article from the "Jewish virtual library"
• Christianity in Nablus
• Palestine Securities Exchange

• Palestinian history
• Palestinian Cities
• Ancient Jewish Roman history
• History of Israel