In the
Crusader period, Khirbet al-Jalama was known as
Gelenna.
Ottoman era Al-Jalama was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine. During the
16th and
17th centuries, al-Jalamah (Jalamat Bani Sa'd) belonged to the
Turabay Emirate (1517-1683), which encompassed also the
Jezreel Valley,
Haifa,
Jenin,
Beit She'an Valley, northern
Jabal Nablus,
Bilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe, and the northern part of the
Sharon plain. In the 1596
tax records it was named
Jalama dir nazd Qaqun, part of
nahiya (subdistrict) of Sara under the ''
liwa''' (district) of
Lajjun. It had an all-
Muslim population of 7 households, who paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on wheat, barley, summer crops, occasional revenues, beehives and/or goats; a total of 12,000
akçe.
Pierre Jacotin named the village
Tour de Zeitah on his map from
Napoleon's invasion in 1799. The French fought a battle here, which is known as the "Battle of Zeita". In 1882, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village as a small
adobe hamlet, situated on the side of a knoll.
British Mandate era The modern village originated from farmland, belonging to the inhabitants of
Attil. The farmers settled on the land nearby, and in the
1922 census there were 29 villagers, all Muslim. In the
1931 census of Palestine it was counted under
Attil (together with
Al-Manshiyya and
Zalafa), while by the
1945 statistics al-Jalama had grown to a population of 70, According to Article VI, section 6 in this Armistice Agreement, the villagers were "protected in, their full rights of residence, property and freedom." However, the Israeli annexation of the villages made them subject to laws that had the purpose of stripping them of their land so that the land could then be given to Jewish settlements, and to eliminate the possibility of
return. During the period of clearing the borders of Palestinians, Israel emptied al-Jalama (now consisting of 225 people) on 1 March 1950. The villagers petitioned the
Supreme Court of Israel for permission to return, which was granted in June 1952. However, members from the
kibbutz Lehavot Haviva had settled on their land. On 11 August 1953, they blew up the remaining houses in al-Jalama, thereby making sure that the Palestinian landowners could not return. The kibbutzniks claimed that the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had ordered them to do this and had given them funds for that purpose. The IDF denied this. Israel then passed
several retroactive laws that legalised the expropriation of the al-Jalama land. ==References==