Benjamin Mazar identified Tulkarm with the toponym
Birat Seriqa (בירת סריקא, lit. '
Saracen tower' or 'vineyard tower'), mentioned in the
Talmud (b.
AZ 31a; y. AZ 5:4) as located near the Samaritan town of Burgata (בורגתא/ברקתא, perhaps from
burgus, 'tower'), which may be modern Burj al-Atut. However,
Félix-Marie Abel put Birat Seriqa closer to
Kafr Qallil, and others put it near
Qalqilya.
Isaiah Press and Dov Zudkevitz suggest the true site may be somewhat west of Tulkarm, at in the
Poleg basin.
Ayyubid and Mamluk periods During the
Ayyubid era, after the Muslim reconquest of Palestine under Sultan
Saladin in 1187, the first families to settle in Tulkarm were from the
Kurdish clan of Zaydan. A military group, the Zaydan were dispatched to the Wadi al-Sha'ir area, which includes Tulkarm, by Saladin to buttress the defense of the western approaches of Muslim-held Palestine from the Crusaders who dominated the coastal area. During this early period of Ottoman rule, there were five neighborhoods (pl.
harat) centered around the Shaykh Ali al-Jazri al-Mughrabi Mosque, today referred to simply as the "Old Mosque". The population was overwhelmingly
Sunni Muslim, and most residents were
fellahin (peasants who worked the land.) The elite families during that time were the Zaydan and the
Lajjun-based
Tarabay, the latter belonging to the
Bani Harith tribe. Because of the decentralized nature of the Ottoman state, these families and their successors in later centuries ruled the area with a high degree of autonomy. The Zaydan had particular authority over Tulkarm, being appointed as the
mutassalim (tax collectors or enforcers) on behalf of the central authorities. Following the adoption of the Ottoman Land Code in 1858, the
musha (collective landownership) system was gradually abrogated and residents were required to register their property with the central authorities. The
fellahin were wary of registering their names for fear of military conscription by the Ottoman state and instead entrusted various elite clans with the role of landlords, who were in effect absentee owners. This altered the area's social structure, with the Samara, al-Hajj Ibrahim and Hanun clans legally obtaining vast swathes of Tulkarm's lands. Leadership of the town's two main religious establishments were generally supplied by the
Kur-based
Jayyusi clan and the al-Barqawi clan of
Shufa. The 1860s French explorer
Victor Guérin visited Tulkarm, which he described as being of "considerable" size, with about 1,000 inhabitants. During this time, the Ottoman authorities granted the village an agricultural plot of land called Ghabat Tulkarm in the former confines of the Forest of Arsur (Ar. Al-Ghaba) in the coastal plain, west of the village. The
Survey of Western Palestine in 1882 described Tulkarm as a "long straggling village, on high ground", surrounded by arable land and rock. There were several "good-sized" houses, mainly of stone in the village. Tulkarm became the administrative center of a new subdistrict (''
qada') Bani Saʿb-Tulkarm in 1876, later becoming a municipality in 1892. Tulkarm was also appointed a governor, bringing the residents who numbered only a few thousand and who were mostly fellahin'', closer to the central government. This elevated status gave Tulkarm precedence over the nearby villages, which at that time also included
Qalqilya. Tulkarm's center shifted from the Old Mosque to an empty space in the northwest as the town expanded northward with the construction of government buildings, a post office, a school and a hospital in that area. Around the turn of the 20th century, Tulkarm was one of the villages in which the Hannun family owned extensive estates. The Hannuns fostered close ties with clans in the village. Tulkarm became a major rail junction in 1908 on the
Hejaz Railway line running up from
Egypt and southern Palestine to
Haifa and
Acre in the northwest,
Jerusalem,
Nablus and
Ramallah to the south,
Lebanon to the north, and
Syria and
Transjordan to the east. The
Ottoman Army used Tulkarm as one of its principal bases during the
Sinai and Palestine campaign in
World War I. It was bombed by British planes carried by
HMS Anne. It was captured by
British forces in 1918.
British Mandate era The
British Mandatory administration (1942–1947) in
Palestine designated Tulkarm as the center of the
Tulkarm Subdistrict. A road was constructed in 1920 to connect the town with
Netanya on the coast. In order to cope with a significant increase in population and unorganized infrastructural development, a civil planning scheme was designed for Tulkarm and its satellite villages in 1945. At the time Tulkarm was divided into four main sections, with the bulk of commercial activity concentrated along the north–south and east–west roads. Meanwhile, the town continued to expand past its northern fringes, which had previously been characterized by green spaces. Tulkarm became a haven for Palestinian Arab rebel activity during the
1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine against British rule. General Commander of the Revolt
Abd al-Rahim al-Hajj Muhammad hailed from Dhinnaba, today part of Tulkarm municipality, and led many operations in the region. In the
1945 statistics the population of Tulkarm consisted of 8,090; of whom 7,790 were Muslims, 280 Christian and 20 "other", Of this, 2,399 dunams were designated for citrus and bananas, 276 plantations and irrigable land, 28,256 for
cereals, while 1,492 dunams were built-up areas.
Jordanian rule During the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, Tulkarm was occupied by the
Iraqi Army and later
annexed as part of the
Jordanian-held
West Bank. The
1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Jordan left roughly 30,000 dunams of Tulkarm's 32,610 dunams of land, mostly agricultural, in Israeli territory. In consequence, many residents moved to
Transjordan or went abroad in search of employment. Straddling the armistice line, Tulkarm was cut off from nearby Arab towns. Its principal economic and social connection was with Nablus. In 1950, the
Tulkarm Camp was established by
UNRWA in the city, comprising an area of . Most of the refugees who resided in the camp came from
Jaffa,
Caesarea and
Haifa. Today it is the second largest
Palestinian refugee camp in the
West Bank. A period of significant municipal expansion began in Tulkarm after a new civil development scheme was authorized in 1961. As part of this plan, in 1963, the hamlet of Jarrad in the southeast and other lands in the northeast (total of 1.8 square km) were annexed to the city, while the eastern village of
Dhinnaba was incorporated into the municipality in 1964, adding another of territory. The village of
Shuweika to the north and the smaller village of
Irtah to the south were annexed in 1967.
Contemporary period map of the area, showing the
Israeli occupation arrangements. Since the
Six-Day War in 1967, Tulkarm has been under
Israeli occupation. In the wake of the 1993
Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), control of Tulkarm was transferred to the
Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on 10 December 1995, becoming the third Palestinian city from which Israeli forces withdrew. Upon assuming control of the city, the PNA instituted new weapons restrictions limiting militants to a single registered weapon that may not be loaded or carried in public.
Gaza War On 19 October 2023, the IDF
entered the city. In August 2024, Israeli bulldozers destroyed miles of the city, including homes, businesses and infrastructure; Israeli soldiers blocked emergency responders from assisting residents. News reports include videos of this attack, as well as assertions by the
Israel Defense Forces that it is rooting out terrorism; and that it "undertakes all feasible precautions to avoid damaging essential infrastructure," while acknowledging that these "operations in the area have caused unavoidable harm to certain civilian structures." ==Geography==