Deir al-Ghusun
Deir al-Ghusun (Arabic: دير الغصون) is a Palestinian town in the Tulkarm Governorate, located eight kilometers northeast of the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank. The town is near the Green Line (border between Israel and the West Bank). The town had a population of 8,242 in 2007. Its altitude is 200 meters.
History
Deir el-Ghusun may have been the village marked as "El Dair" on Pierre Jacotin's map surveyed during Napoleon's 1799 invasion. In the middle of the 19th century it was known for its cotton production.
In 1863, during the late Ottoman period, the French explorer Victor Guérin passed by and noted the village south of Attil. He described it as large, and occupying a hilltop. In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it as "a village of moderate size, on a hill, with a well to the west. On the north is open low ground. It is surrounded with magnificent groves of olives, occupying an area of about three square miles towards the south."
