In 1870 a local guide showed French explorer
Victor Guérin extensive ruins located south of Daliyat al-Karmel, called Khirbet Doubel. The ruins were the most extensive on Mount Carmel. Guérin thought it might be the town on Mt. Carmel mentioned by
Pliny.
Conder and
Kitchener of the
Palestine Exploration Fund surveyed the area and noted "traces of ruins" at a place SE of the village centre called
Dubil. Later excavations have found remains there from Iron Age I, Early Roman and
Byzantine periods, together with pottery from first century to the second–third centuries CE. Although inconclusive,
Lieutenant Conder thought that
Daliyat al-Karmel was to be identified with the biblical
Idalah (Joshua 19:15).
Middle Ages In 1283 both
Daliyat al-Karmel and
Kh. Doubel (just south of Daliyat al-Karmel) were mentioned as part of the domain of the
Crusaders, according to the
hudna between the Crusaders in
Acre and the
Mamluk sultan
Qalawun.
Ottoman Empire Mount Carmel was progressively settled by
Druze beginning in the early 17th century, when a large part of
Palestine came under the jurisdiction of
Fakhr al-Din II, the paramount Druze strongman of
Mount Lebanon and
Ottoman governor of the
Sidon-Beirut and
Safad districts. Druze from the
Yamani tribo-political faction may have also migrated to Mount Carmel from Mount Lebanon in the aftermath of the
Battle of Ain Dara in 1711, though most of the migration was directed to the
Jabal Hauran. Six out of the eight Druze villages established on Mount Carmel were abandoned or destroyed during
Egyptian rule in the Levant (1831–1840). The local accounts recorded by
Laurence Oliphant, who built himself a summer house in Daliyat al-Karmil in the 1880s, hold that the villages were abandoned for Jabal Hauran due to the oppressive rule of the governor
Ibrahim Pasha, while Conder noted that the villages were destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha. Daliyat al-Karmil and
Isfiya were the sole Druze settlements left standing on Mount Carmel. The local traditional trace Daliyat al-Karmel's founding to the 18th century when a Druze family from
Jabal al-A'la near
Aleppo settled on ancient ruins in the village. Successive waves of Druze families from Jabal al-A'la followed and together they formed the Halaby ("Aleppine") clan. Until today the Halaby clan of the town speaks in the Aleppine Arabic dialect rather than the Palestinian dialect. In 1870 Guérin found four hundred Druze inhabitants in Daliyat al-Karmel. The houses were mostly built of adobe, with only a few stone houses. The locals worshiped inside a cave, where the explorer was not allowed. In 1881 the
Palestine Exploration Fund's
Survey of Western Palestine described the village as a "stone village of moderate size on a knoll of one of the spurs running out of the main watershed of Carmel. On the south there is a well, and fine springs on the west, near Umm esh Shukf. On the north is a little plain or open valley cultivated with corn (Merjat ed Dalieh). The inhabitants are all Druses." A population list from about 1887 showed that Daliyat al-Karmel had about 620 inhabitants, all Druze.
British Mandate In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, Daliyat al-Karmel had a population of 993; 921 Druse and 21 Christians, increasing in the
1931 census when Daliyat al-Karmel, together Deir el Muhraqa and
Khirbat al-Mansura had a total population of 1,173, of whom 1,154 were Druze, 11 were Christians and 8 were Muslims, living in a total of 236 houses. In the
1945 statistics the population of Daliyat al-Karmel consisted of 2,060 Arabs, The land area was 31,730
dunams, according to an official land and population survey, of which 1,506 dunams were designated for plantations and irrigable land, 18,174 for cereals, and 60 were built-up (urban) areas.
Israel An Israeli census conducted in November 1948 found 2,932 residents. At the end of 1951 the figure dropped to 2,769. The town was granted
local council status that year. In 2003 Daliyat al-Karmel was merged with Isfiya to form
Carmel City. In 2008, the communities became separate once again. In 2007, Daliyat al-Karmel signed a partnership agreement with
Ungheni,
Moldova. In 2008, the Ambassador of Moldova,
Larisa Miculet visited Daliyat al-Karmel at the invitation of the mayor, Akram Hasson. In 2010,
El Al, Israel's national airline, named one of its
Boeing 767 airplanes Daliyat al-Karmel. Sheikh
Muafak Tarif, leader of the
Druze community, was presented with a miniature model of the plane at a special ceremony. In 2012, a tennis school financed by the Freddie Krivine Foundation opened in Daliyat al-Karmel and 12 youngsters take part in a weekly co-existence program with children at the
Israel Tennis Center in
Yokneam. In 2022, the
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation gifted to Daliyat al Karmel an interpretive sculpture by noted Jerusalem artist
Sam Philipe titled The Flame of Friendship. The city prominently sited the sculpture at the Policeman's Circle. The dedication plate reads, The Flame of Friendship - Honor, Respect, Commonality. == Demography ==