Attil is an ancient village site on a hill at the edge of the plains. Pottery remain have been found here from
Middle Bronze Age II,
Iron Age I and IA II,
Persian,
Hellenistic, early and late
Roman,
Byzantine, early
Muslim and the Middle Ages have been found here. Fragmentary
mosaic floors and
column shafts from a
church have been found, together with
cisterns dug into the rock, as well as caves. The text describes a battle at Attil, where
Abū Ḥarb al-Yamānī, who rebelled against
Abbasid rule in the 840s, was ultimately defeated. The intense bloodshed rendered the village
impure to an extent that purification appeared unlikely. However, a Samaritan leader named Pinhas, who was a jurist, undertook the task of purifying the village due to its large size, since it was one of the largest villages, and eventually restored its purity. In 1179, it was mentioned in
Crusader sources as
Azatil. In March 1265, when Sultan
Baibars awarded his officers lands, he gave Attil “To the
Atabek Faris al-Din Uqtay al-Salihi“.
Ottoman era Attil, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the
census of 1596 it was a part of the
nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jabal Sami which was under the administration of the
liwa ("district") of
Nablus. The village had a population of 59 households, all
Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, occasional revenues, beehives and/or goats, an olive oil press, or press for grape syrup, and a poll tax; a total of 14,872
akçe. In the 16th century, the neighboring village of
Beit Sama was listed as inhabited, but it became abandoned before the 19th century, with its land being absorbed by Attil and
Illar. In 1838 it was noted as a village, '
Attil, in the western ''Esh-Sha'rawiyeh'' administrative region, north of
Nablus. In the late Ottoman period, in 1852, the American scholar
Edward Robinson described passing by the villages of
Zeita and
Jatt on the way to 'Attil. Of 'Attil itself, he writes that it was "a considerable village," located on a hill with plains to the north and south. He further noted: ”It appears, that the land in the district of Nabulus including the plains, is generally freehold; and the taxes are mainly paid in the form of a
poll tax.” In 1863, the French explorer
Victor Guérin passed by and noted that the village was also called
Deir Attil. In 1870/1871 (1288
AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the
nahiya (sub-district) of al-Sha'rawiyya al-Gharbiyya. In 1882 the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine described the village as being of considerable size, situated on a hill on the edge of the plain, and surrounded by a small olive-grove, and supplied by
cisterns.
British Mandate era In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, Attil had a population of 1,656, all
Muslims. At the time of the
1931 census of Palestine, Attil, together with
Jalama,
Al-Manshiyya and
Zalafa had a total of 2207 persons, all Muslim except 1 Druze, living in 473 houses. During the Great Arab Revolt in 1938, an armed company of rebels—allegedly drawn from
Caesarea,
Irtah, or ‘Attil—kidnapped the Greek-Cypriot priest Hanna al-Khuri and his younger brother; the captives were taken toward Tulkarm and murdered. In the
1945 statistics the population of Attil was 2,650, all Muslims, who owned 7,337
dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 4,011 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 2,527 used for cereals, while 86 dunams were built-up (urban) land. File:Attil 1942.jpg|Attil 1942 1:20,000 File:Tulkarm 1945 ii.jpg|Attil 1945 1:250,000
Jordanian era In the wake of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the
1949 Armistice Agreements, Attil came under
Jordanian rule. It was
annexed by Jordan in 1950. In 1961, the population was 4,087.
Post-1967 Since the
Six-Day War in 1967, Attil has been under
Israeli occupation.
Population Attil had a population of 9,038 in the 2007 census by the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The majority of its people are expatriates living in
Jordan, various
states in the Persian Gulf, the
United States,
Europe, and other parts of the world. By 2017, the population had increased to 10,367. == Tomb ==