In 1596, named
Jibsid, it was a village in the
Ottoman nahiya (subdistrict) of
Sagif under the ''
liwa' (district) of Safad, with a population of 39 households and 10 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, olive trees, fruit trees, goats, beehives and "occasional revenues"; a total of 5,040 akçe''. In 1875
Victor Guérin found here a village of 400
Metualis, and a
Wali, named Nabi Seth. On the night of 27/28 July 1989,
Israeli occupation commandos abducted the
Hezbollah leader Sheikh
Abdel Karim Obeid and two of his aides from his home in Jibchit. The operation was planned by the then Minister of Defence
Yitzhak Rabin. Hezbollah responded by announcing the execution of
Colonel Higgins, a senior American officer working with
UNIFIL who had been kidnapped in February 1988. In 1993, during a
week-long attack by Israel on Lebanon, an
Israeli Army spokesperson said that "70 percent of the village of Jibchit is totally destroyed, its inhabitants will not recognize it." The goal was "to wipe the villages from the face of the earth," a senior officer added. ==Demographics==