Iron Age I to Late Byzantine period The first settlement at the site dates back to
Iron Age I (1200-1000 BCE), followed by renewed habitation from the
Persian period (586-332 BCE) until the latter part of the
Byzantine period (5th-6th centuries CE).
Crusader and Mamluk periods over Crusader ruins The castle named in Frankish chronicles as
Chastel Neuf (in
medieval French) or
Castellum Novum (in
Latin), and known as '''Qal'at Hunin
in Arabic, and as (Horvat) Mezudat Hunin''' in
Modern Hebrew, was built in two phases by the
Crusaders during the 12th and 13th centuries (1105–7, 1178 and 1240) and refortified by
Mamluk sultan Baibars in 1266. The moat is the only well-visible Crusader feature left, The village was badly damaged in the
earthquake of 1837, according to
Edward Robinson who visited in 1856. In 1875,
Victor Guérin visited Hunin. In 1881, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine described Hunin as "[a] village, built of stone, joining on to ruined Crusading castle [..], and containing about 100 Moslems. The situation is on a low ridge just before the hills drop down to the east to the Huleh Valley; the hills round are uncultivated, covered with low scrub, but in the valleys there is some arable land. Water is obtained from numerous cisterns; a birket [pool, reservoir] and spring to the south-east."
British Mandate period The
Syria-
Lebanon-
Palestine boundary was a product of the post-
World War I Anglo-French partition of
Ottoman Syria. British forces had advanced to a position at
Tel Hazor against Turkish troops in 1918 and wished to incorporate all the sources of the
River Jordan within British-controlled Palestine. Following the
Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and the unratified and later annulled
Treaty of Sèvres, stemming from the
San Remo conference, the 1920 boundary extended the British-controlled area to north of the
Sykes-Picot line, a straight line between the midpoint of the
Sea of Galilee and
Nahariya. The international boundary between Palestine and Lebanon was finally agreed upon by Great Britain and France in 1923, in conjunction with the
Treaty of Lausanne, after Britain had been given a
League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1922. In April 1924, Hunin and six other Shiite villages, and an estimated 20 other settlements, were transferred from the
French Mandate of Lebanon to the
British Mandate of Palestine by
France. In the
1931 census of Palestine, the population of Hunin was 1,075, all Muslims, in a total of 233 houses. In the
1945 statistics the population of Hunin (with
Hula and
Udeisa) was 1620 Muslims, while 81 dunams were classified as urban land. In 1945, kibbutz
Misgav Am was established on what was the northern part of village land. During a meeting in August 1948, the
mukhtars of Hunin and other Shiite villages met with the Jews of kibbutz
Kfar Giladi, declaring their willingness to be good citizens of Israel. Four village women were raped and murdered by Israeli soldiers during the summer. On 2 September 1948, the IDF raided the village blowing up 20 houses, killing a son of the mukhtar and 19 others and expelling the remaining villagers. Most of the villagers took refuge in Shiite villages in Lebanon. The site of the former village became part of the newly established
State of Israel and in 1951, moshav
Margaliot was established just south of the village site. ==See also==