Yanun () is a Palestinian village in the Nablus Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the northern West Bank, located southeast of Nablus, and 3 miles north of Aqraba. It lies within Area C, under total Israeli control, of the West Bank. It is divided into two sites, upper and lower Yanun. Upper or northern Yanin is considered illegal by the Israeli authorities, and development is prohibited there. Settlers Force Desertion of Yanun Village,, Settlement Report | Vol. 12 No. 6 | November–December 2002, Foundation for Middle East Peace
After being destroyed post-16th century, the village was reestablished in 1878 by Muslim Bosniak families who received lands from the Ottoman government.Grossman, D. (1994). Rural and desertion: the Arab village and its offshoots in Ottoman Palestine. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi. p. 233 One Bosniak family still owns the land, although it's now inhabited by their tenants, who also live in the nearby hamlet of Ein Yanun. The inhabitants have their origins in the nearby villages of Awarta and Beit Furik.Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 356
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the village had a population of 92 in 2017. This was a decrease from 2004 when the PCBS recorded that Yanun had 145 inhabitants.Projected Mid -Year Population for Nablus Governorate by Locality 2004- 2006 Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The residents of the village have to travel to Beit Furik for primary health care.West Bank Healthcare
History Pottery sherds from Iron Age II, Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader/Ayyubid eras have been found here.Finkelstein and Lederman, 1997, p. 822
Yanun the village is distinct from Khirbet Yanun, nearby ruins to the north-east of the village. According to Edward Robinson, Yanun corresponds to the Janō(Ἰανὼ) of Eusebius and Jerome, a village in Acrabatene east of Neapolis, which, according to Robinson, these two Church Fathers confused with the ancient frontier town of Yanoḥah(ינוחה) of Naphtali, which belonged to the Tribe of Ephraim.Robinson, 1856, p. 297Saunders, 1881, p. 226 Victor Guérin argued that both Eusebius and Jerome had confused the Yanoḥah of the tribe of Ephraim with the quite distinct, homophonous village belonging to the tribe of Naphtali (p. 7) Modern researchers, following Guerin, have suggested that the Biblical Yanoḥah refers to Khirbet Yanun, as pottery sherds from lron Age I has been found there, and not at Yanun.Finkelstein and Lederman, 1997, p. 828 Several caves dot the area, which the local school headmaster claims were dwelt in by the Canaanites.
There is a shrine, formerly used by villagers as a mosque, believed to be of the prophet Nun on a hillock called Nabinun three hundred metres east of Lower Yanun.Canaan, 1927, p. 285
Byzantine pottery and other signs of ancient habitation including tombs carved into rock have been found at the village site.Dauphin, 1998, p. 849 There are ruins of a Frankish church.Ellenblum, 2003, p. 224Pringle, 1997, p. 115
Ottoman era In 1596, Yanun appeared in Ottoman tax registers as a village in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal, part of Sanjak Nablus, with a population of 18 Muslim households. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, goats or beehives, and a press for olives or grapes; a total of 7,500 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 135
Edward Robinson visited Yanun in 1852. He wrote that the village was mostly in ruins and only a few houses were inhabited. In the 19th century, Yanun was settled by some 50 Bushnaks (Bosniaks), Muslims from Bosnia, after their country was ceded to the Austro-Hungarian Empire by the Congress of Berlin. The sultan Abdul Hamid gave the immigrants a significant part of the village. According to Haaretz, these were soldiers sent to reinforce Ottoman rule in Palestine. Adopting a common surname, Bushnak, they later moved to nearby Nablus and leased their farmlands to villagers from Aqraba who gradually left their village to settle in Yanun themselves. The villagers are their partners and descendants. In 1870, Victor Guérin visited, and noted the Neby Nun east of Yanun.Guérin, 1875, pp. 6-8 In the 1882, the Survey of Western Palestine described it as "A small village on the edge of a deep valley, with a sacred place to the east (Neby Nun), and a small spring about 1 mile to the north".Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 387
British Mandate era In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Yanun had a population of 70; all Muslim,Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Nablus, p. 25 increasing in the 1931 census to 120, still all Muslims, in a total of 22 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 66
According to the 1945 statistics, Yanun had a population of 50 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 19 with a total of 16,439 dunams of land,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 61 living in a built-up area of 34 dunams.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 158 Of this, 731 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, while 3,969 dunams were used for cereals.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 108
Jordanian era In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Yanun came under Jordanian rule. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950.
The Jordanian census of 1961 found 103 inhabitants.Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 26
1967 and aftermath After the Six-Day War in 1967, Yanun has been under Israeli occupation.
After the 1995 accords, 31% of the land of Aqraba/Yanun was classified as Area B, the remaining 69% as Area C.Aqraba Town Profile (including Yanun Locality) ARIJ, p. 16
As of 2002, the village is still leased by the residents of Aqraba and payment for leasing the land could be made in the form of wheat, olive oil or cash. About three-quarters of Yanun's 16,000 dunams of land is still leased.
According to Vikram Sura, Itamar settlers used to trade with local farmers and visit Yanun to enjoy refreshments like cardamom-spiced coffee and mint tea there. In the mid-late 1990s, Itamar began 'annexing' hills stretching out from the settlement towards Yanun. Trailer homes from Itamar began to be set up along the ridge overlooking the village. The last outpost, Giv'ot Olam, looking down over the village of Yanun, was created by Avri Ran, who obtained the land by trespassing on Yanun-owned areas and on Israeli state land, and assaulting any Palestinians who approached his settlement.Chaim Levinson, 'Israeli 'hilltop youth' accuse their former hero of stealing settlers' land,' at Haaretz, 31 January 2013. Though they felt surrounded, the Yanun villagers did not feel vulnerable. Relations changed with the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in October 2000, when 13 Israeli Arabs were shot dead during the suppression of a riot protesting the visit of Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount. Yanun lies far from the main areas where Palestinian militants and the IDF subsequently clashed, and till then grievances between the two communities were less than the norm. Over the next three years, Palestinian militants killed roughly 11 Itamar settlers. A Californian who made aliyah to Itamar later accused Yanun of having aided these terrorists. No member of the village has been linked to any attack on settlers.Palestinians 'forced to abandon village,' BBC News, 21 October 2002. The youths on Avri Ran's hilltop outpost argue that they have a prerogative to respond with violence when they feel their Palestinian neighbours are preventing them from realizing their right, as legal heirs of God's bequest, to work the land.Pedahzur and Perliger, 2013, p. 115
Armed settlers, according to local reports began to hinder Yanun farmers from harvesting their olive crops, intimidating the villagers and damaging the village's electrical generator.Vikram Sura, ‘No olive branch for Yanun?’, at The Hindu, October 12, 2003. According to a survey reported and compiled by Yanun councilor Abdelatif Sobih, Yanun villagers have since been subjected to repeated assaults on their homes and farms; beatings; shootings, some resulting in death; poisoning and shootings of their flocks; the use of fierce dogs to impede farmer access to their lands; blocking of their access roads; pollution of their water resource; destruction of their electric generator, constructed with a donation from the Economic Development Group; the ploughing of fields sown with crops, or the burning of crops at harvest time; theft of olive trees; shooting at relatives' cars travelling to visit Yanun; and interrogation of teachers at the Yanun elementary school.Settlers Force Desertion of Yanun Village , Settlement Report | Vol. 12 No. 6 | November–December 2002, Foundation for Middle East PeaceFerran Izquierdo Brichs, "El cor de la neteja ètnica: Relat d'un viatge a Cisjordània i la Franja de Gaza" in Belén Vicéns (coord.), L'Orient Mitjà en el punt de mira, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2005 p.132
2002 temporary exodus Assaults and shootings by settlers at Palestinian farmers and foreign volunteers at olive harvest time took place in 2002.Shulman, 2008, pp. 8, 107-108, 181-2. A Council spokesman for the Israeli settlement of Itamar, in response to queries about the incidents, replied that he was unaware of claims of harassment and that settlers were trying to keep Palestinian villagers away from themselves. Another Itamar spokesman told The Guardian at the time “If anyone is being terrorized it is us. Arabs have to learn that if they continue to be violent they can’t live here. There is all this talk of Arab olives, what about Jewish blood?”