Awarta has been inhabited in the
First Temple period,
Byzantine and
Early Islamic period, and again during
Ottoman rule. Between the 4th and 12th centuries, the town was an important
Samaritan center, being the location of one of their main
synagogues. According to
Ben-Zvi, the last
Samaritan family, who are of priestly
Cohen lineage from the tribe of Levi, left Awarta during the 17th century. He also mentions that the Samaritans of his time (1920s) believed that the majority of the village's residents or all of them are of Samaritan ancestry but were forced to convert to Islam. Samaritan author Benyamim Tsedaka lists seven Samaritan families, H'Akkaba, Qaahlaa, Qinaa, Libi, Ma'or, Phinass and Roomem, who resided in Awarta before their destruction or conversion. The
Hill of Phinehas related in the
Bible is associated with the location of the town of Awarta. Three large monuments in the town are attributed to the priestly family of
Aaron. According to tradition, they are the burial sites of his sons
Ithamar and
Eleazar. His grandson Phinehas is believed to be buried at the site alongside his son
Abishua — the latter is especially revered by the Samaritans, who believe that he wrote the
Torah. The seventy Elders are believed to be buried in a cave near Phinehas' tomb. On the western side of Awarta lies the tomb
Muslims attribute to Nabi Uzeir,
Ezra the scribe.
Conder and
Kitchener, citing another Samaritan tradition, say rather that it was Eleazer the priest who was buried a "little way west of Awarta (at ''al 'Azeir'')," while Joshua bin Nun was buried at
Kefr Haris.
Ottoman era Awarta was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the
tax registers as being in the
Nahiya of
Jabal Qubal, part of
Nablus Sanjak. It had a population of 50 households, all
Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and/or beehives, in addition to for a press for olives or grapes and occasional revenues; a total of 11,194
akçe. The site was visited in the 17th-century CE by
Ottoman explorer,
Evliya Çelebi. In his detailed travelogue, he wrote that Awarta was situated between
Balāṭa and
Ḥuwwāra as one traveled the country from north to south. In this place, he notes, is located the “house of el-‘Uzair,” erroneously translated later as the ‘house of Ezra,’ but actually meaning the “tomb of
Eleazar, the son of Aaron,” and which at that time had already been converted into a
mosque. In 1838,
Edward Robinson noted the village besides
Rujeib and Odela, part of the
el-Beitawy district, east of Nablus. In 1870
Victor Guérin visited the village, and noted that in the upper part there was a mosque, called
Djama Mansour, containing a gigantic whitewashed tomb. In 1882, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine described it as "a village, on the slopes east of the plain, with springs to the east, and olive-groves. It is built of
adobe and stone, and is of moderate size."
British Mandate era In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, Awarta had a population of 938
Muslims, increasing at the time of the
1931 census to 1,019, still all Muslim, in 257 houses. In the
1945 statistics Awarta together with
Odala had a population of 1,470, all Muslims, with 16,106
dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 30 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 9,406 used for cereals, while 132 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
Jordanian era In the wake of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the
1949 Armistice Agreements, Awarta came under
Jordanian rule. It was
annexed by Jordan in 1950. In 1961, the population of Awarta was 2,069.
1967, aftermath Since the
Six-Day War in 1967, Awarta has been under
Israeli occupation. The
Palestinian National Authority agreed to ensure free access to these sites as specified in the 1995
Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. According to
Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem, much of the land of Awarta has been confiscated by the Israelis, including 2,450
dunums of land which was used for construction of the
Israeli settlement of
Itamar. There are frequent reports of violence by Israeli settlers towards Palestinian farmers during the annual olive harvest. However, from 2007, when a group of Israeli activists —
Rabbis for Human Rights — agreed to protect the farmers during the harvest, attacks temporarily came to an end. According to Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors West Bank settlements, on 10 July 2013 Israelis from the Itamar settlement used chainsaws to cut down thousands of the villagers' olive trees in a 600-dunam olive grove maintained by 25 Awarta families in an area north of their town. Sami, Iyad N’am ‘Awwad, a local teacher, stated that the affected area has been isolated from the rest of the village by the erection of two Itamar security fences. In 2010, two cousins from Awarta, Salah Qawariq, 18, and Muhammad Qawariq, 19, were killed by an
Israeli (IDF) soldier who emptied his magazine, shooting them 29 times. The autopsies reveal that both had been shot at close range. Palestinian sources claim the teenagers were executed by Israeli soldiers, while out working their land. Israeli accounts varied over time: they were on their land when
Avri Ran noted them on the property and forced them to sit down, called up a settlement security coordinator, who in turn called the IDF in. After two hours of communications between the soldiers and headquarters, the men were shot: on interrogation the other soldiers said they had not witnessed the shooting. The IDF announced that a terrorist attempt involving an attempt to attack soldiers with a pitchfork had been foiled. This was subsequently revised to an assault with a bottle and a syringe. It emerged later that they had not got IDF clearance to work their land. Awarta made international headlines after the
Itamar attack of 11 March 2011, when five members of the same family were killed in the nearby Israeli settlement of Itamar. Awarta was subsequently declared a closed military zone, due to suspicions that the perpetrators were residents of the village. According to the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz, Palestinian sources reported that Israeli military forces took all of Awarta's men in for questioning, including two officers of the Palestinian security forces, making "wholesale arrests". As a reaction to the attack, masked Israeli settlers infiltrated the village and threw stones at homes, before being dispersed by the
Israel Defense Forces. Two young Awarta residents, Hakim Maazan Niad Awad and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad were arrested on 5 and 10 April 2011 and confessed to the killings. The village council chief condemned the murder, however he voiced doubts over the Israeli findings and claimed that the two suspects confessed under duress. The two were sentenced to five consecutive life sentences and another five and seven years respectively in prison. ==Economy==