Muqeible or Muqeibla (Arabic: مقيبلةHebrew: מֻקֵיבִּלָה), meaning "The front place",[1] is an Israeli Arab town located in Israel's North District, in the Jezreel Valley between Ta'anakh and Jenin. It is a part of the Gilboa Regional Council. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Muqeible had a mixed population of approximately 3,000 Muslims and Christians at the end of 2005.[2]
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The history of the place dates at least back to Roman times, when the was a settlement there, known as Muqeibleh. Byzantine time settlement is attested archaeologically by a well and pottery workshops from that period near the present village.[3]
According to a local inhabitant, the villagers moved here from the Al-Haram-Sidna Ali-area in the latter part of the Ottoman period.[3]
In the ninetheenth century, Guérin noted that the village contained 400 inhabitants and had a number of cisterns.[4] Later, in 1881, "The Survey of Western Palestine" described the village as "a mud village in the plain, supplied by cisterns.[5]
At the time of the 1931 census, Muqeible had 67 occupied houses and a population of 244 Muslims and 26 Christians.[6] By 1945, Muqeible had 460 inhabitants, all classified as Arabs. They owned a total of 2,687 dunams of land, while 4,441 dunams were public.[7]
In the center of the village there is a large, square courtyard building, resembling a khan, with the central courtyard measuring approximately 30m per side. On the east side there is a small gateway, leading into a tall iwan. Andrew Petersen, an archaeologist specializing in Islamic architecture, visited it in 1994, and notes that the masonry suggested that it was built either in late Ottoman or early Mandate Period.[3]
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