Beit Fajjar

Beit Fajjar (Arabic: بيت فجّار‎) is a Palestinian town located eight kilometers south of Bethlehem in the Bethlehem Governorate, in the central West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of over 11,000 in 2007.

History

Beit Fajjar is believed to have been a camping area for the Islamic Caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab.

Ottoman era

Edward Robinson noted the village on his travels in the area in 1838. According to Kark and Oren-Nordheim, Beit Fajjar was mostly farmland until the 19th century, when it gradually transformed into an urban settlement. The residents were descendants to a semi-nomadic family from the Hauran. The lands formerly belonged to the village of Buraikut. According to the villagers, they came from Bethlehem, and settled at Beit Fajjar in 1784.

French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863, and described it as a village on the top of a hill, with about 400 people. The villagers still buried their dead in rock-cut tombs, below the village. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 indicated 27 houses and a population of 81, though the population count included only men.