Ein Mahil

Ein Mahil (Arabic: عين ماهل‎; Hebrew: עֵין מָהִל) is an Arab local council in the North District of Israel, located about five kilometers north of Nazareth. It was declared a local council in 1964. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), it had a population of 10,800 in 2006, with a growth rate of 2.2%. The majority of the citizens of the village are Muslims.

History

In 1596, Ein Mahil appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Tabariyya of the Liwa of Safad. It had a population of 28 Muslim households, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, fruit trees, and goats or beehives. A map by Pierre Jacotin, from 1799 showed the place named Ain el Mahel.

The French explorer Victor Guérin passed by the village in the 1875, and described it as having 10 poor dwellings, surrounded by gardens of olives, figs and pomegranates. In 1881 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as a "Stone village, situated on very high ground, surrounded by figs and olives and arable land. It contains about 200 Moslems, and has near it a fine group of springs."