Deir Hanna (, ) is an Arab town and local council in the Northern District of Israel, located on the hills of the Lower Galilee, southeast of Acre. In , it had a population of . Approximately 90% of Deir Hanna's inhabitants are Muslims and the remaining 10% are Christians.
The village may have been a center of rabbinic Judaism in the 1st century and in the 12th–13th centuries, was mentioned as a village of a Crusader fief. In the 18th century, during Ottoman rule, Deir Hanna became the rural stronghold of the Zayadina, a local family of strongmen and tax farmers led by Sheikh Daher al-Umar which controlled northern Palestine. Daher's brother Sa'd al-Umar built a fine mosque and substantially fortified Deir Hanna when he controlled it in the 1730s–1761 and further additions were successively made by Daher and his son Ali. The fortifications spanned an outer enclosure topped by twelve towers, an inner enclosure and two detached outer towers. The Zayadina lost control of the fortress village after a lengthy siege by Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar on 22 July 1776, sealing the end of the family's roughly century-long power.
The fortress was largely destroyed but Deir Hanna was mentioned again in European travelogues throughout the 19th century as a religiously mixed village of Muslims and Greek Orthodox Christians living within the fortress remains.
Etymology In Arabic, "Deir" is a convent or monastery. "Deir Hanna" means “the Convent of St. John”.
Geography
Deir Hanna is located in the heart of the Galilee roughly at the midpoint between the Mediterranean and the Sea of Galilee. The old village surmounts a ridge about above sea level. It sits on the southern edge of the fertile Battuf plain, which separates the hills of Upper and Lower Galilee.
History Some scholars identify Deir Hanna with the ancient Jewish town of Kfar Yochana (; alternatively spelled as Kfar Yohanan, Kfar Hanun, Kfar Hanina, Kfar Hana, Kfar Hanan, Kfar Hanin). The town held significance as a center of rabbinic learning, being the home of numerous sages. Kfar Yochana was the seat of Jachin, a priestly family, following the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.
Crusader period In the Crusader era, Deir Hanna was a fief known as Berhenne,Frankel, 1988, p. 255 or Der Henne. In 1174, it was one of the casalia (villages) given to Phillipe le Rous.Strehlke, 1869, p. 8, No. 7; cited in Röhricht, 1893, RHH, p. 137, No. 517; cited in Ellenblum, 2003, p. 109, note 16 and Frankel, 1988, p. 255 In 1236, descendants of Phillipe le Rous confirmed the sale of the fief of Deir Henna.Strehlke, 1869, p. 64, No.81; cited Röhricht, 1893, RHH, p. 269, No. 1069; cited in Frankel, 1988, p. 265 According to architectural researcher Andrew Petersen, no traces of Crusader occupation were found in the village.
Ottoman period Zaydani period
Deir Hanna became a base for the Zaydani family in the 18th century, and thus its importance grew with Daher al-Umar's rise to power during that time. Daher gave his eldest brother, Sa'd al-Umar, control of the village and nearby Arraba. An imperial ordered the governor of Damascus, Sulayman Pasha al-Azm, to raze Deir Hanna, but the order was not executed. Daher was headquartered in Tiberias and during the sieges of Tiberias (1742–1743) by Sulayman Pasha, Deir Hanna was used to smuggle in arms and provisions to Daher and Sa'd used it as a base to harry the besiegers. Sulayman Pasha thus launched an assault on Sa'd at Deir Hanna, but died suddenly, after which Zaydani forces overtook the governor's camp.
In the few years before he took up residence in the port town of Acre as his new headquarters in 1750, Daher used Deir Hanna as his principal base of operations. Sa'd commissioned the construction of most of Deir Hanna's fortifications, including its high inner enclosure walls, which at the time had 12 towers, and in 1732-33, its mosque. The mosque, before its destruction in 1776, had been the "most famous of all the Zaydānī's buildings in the Galilee", according to historian Moshe Sharon. Local tradition claims that the mosque was built on top of an older Crusader-era church and that Jazzar Pasha had been so impressed by Sa'd's mosque, that he copied its design for his namesake mosque in Acre. Deir Hanna was mentioned as a "castle" by Richard Pococke during his visit to the area in 1737.
Sa'd died in 1761 and the village became singularly controlled by Daher, who is credited with the construction of Deir Hanna's outer walls. In September 1767, Daher's son Ali requested control of the village, but Daher refused due to its high strategic importance, leading Ali to launch a rebellion against his father. At the time, Daher deputized control of Deir Hanna to another of his sons, Ahmad. Ali, now allied with his brother Salibi of Tiberias, drove Ahmad out and took over the fortress. In October, Daher put Ali to flight, but the latter left his wife and children in Deir Hanna to draw the sympathies of his father; Daher afterward agreed to cede control of the village for 12,500 piasters and 25 quality horses. Ali added two towers, each respectively located on the eastern and western sides of the fort. Both towers were detached from the fortress and were intended as additional protection in the event of a siege.
Following Daher's defeat and killing by an imperial Ottoman force in 1775, the government appointed Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar as governor of Sidon and Jazzar used Daher's capital Acre as his headquarters. His first priority was subduing the Zaydani family which remained in control of Acre's Galilee countryside. Ali was the chief rebel against Jazzar among Daher's sons. After a series of battlefield defeats at Amqa, Majd al-Krum and Rameh, Ali staged a last stand against Jazzar at Deir Hanna. With 3,000, 5,000 or 12,000 soldiers (according to different estimates) and heavy guns, Jazzar besieged Deir Hanna in mid-1776. Ali soon after departed to gather more forces from his other base in Safed, leaving Deir Hanna under the command of his brother Sa'id. The latter, having failed to prevent Jazzar from reaching the village, also left for Safed. During the siege, Jazzar sowed divisions within Zaydani family ranks, having Ali's brother Uthman and his Bedouin supporters join in the siege, and offering safe conduct to Ahmad and Sa'id; five of Daher's sons were reported to have surrendered to Hasan Pasha al-Jaza'iri, the Ottoman navy captain at Acre, in July 1776.
Ali refused to capitulate and while the two outer towers of Deir Hanna were captured by Jazzar and reinforcements were blocked, the Zaydani garrison held out against Jazzar's troops for weeks. The garrison included Sa'id, Muhammad Abu Ghurrah (commander of the fortress and Daher's former deputy over Jaffa), Ali's (chief aide) Yusuf Dabbur (commander of the citadel), and Ali's son Fadil. A contemporary chronicler, Sa'id Effendi, noted the challenge posed by Deir Hanna: "It is not possible to describe (the extent) of the fortification (works) or the strength of the citadel". The stalemate was broken in late July when Hasan Pasha deployed a heavy cannon and 200 troops to support Jazzar. Cannon fire heavily damaged Deir Hanna's walls, prompting Ali to dispatch the qadi of Safed, Isma'il Effendi (Isma'il Ibn Abd al-Qadir al-Safadi), to negotiate peace with Jazzar on his behalf. Jazzar refused, insisting on direct negotiations, and the shelling of Deir Hanna resumed. Dabbur bypassed Ali and obtained promises of clemency from Jazzar for himself and his men and safe passage for their women and children, in return for surrendering the fortress and their weapons. On 22 July, the gates were opened to Jazzar, though he reneged and imprisoned the commanders. Deir Hanna was afterward razed by Jazzar's order.
19th century Local peasants re-inhabited Deir Hanna sometime after Jezzar's assault, but the village did not recover its prominence and no longer posed a threat to Ottoman authority. In 1838, Deir Hanna was noted as a Christian and Muslim village in the Shaghur district, located between Safed, Acre and Tiberias. In 1875 Victor Guérin found 40 Muslim and four Greek Orthodox Christian families living in Deir Hanna. In 1881, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village and the building works of the Zaydani period as: "High walls all around the village, which is built of stone. The walls have round towers ... It is situated on the top of a high ridge, and contains about 400 Christians. It is surrounded by olive-groves and arable land. Water is obtained from cisterns and an old paved birkeh [pool] to the north of the village." A population list from about 1887 showed that Deir Hanna had about 365 inhabitants; 280 Muslims and 85 Catholic Christians.
British Mandate In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Deir Hanna had a population of 429; 320 Muslims and 109 Christians, where all the Christians were Orthodox. By the 1931 census the population had increased to 563; 427 Muslims and 136 Christians, in a total of 117 houses.
In the 1945 statistics, its population was estimated by 750 Arab inhabitants; 540 Muslims and 210 Christians,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 4 with a total land area of 15,350 dunams.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 40 Of this, 2,799 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 5,242 used for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p.80 while 38 dunams were built-up.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 130
Israel During Operation Hiram, 29–31 October 1948, the town surrendered to the advancing Israeli army. Many of the inhabitants fled north but some stayed and were not expelled by the Israeli soldiers. Deir Hanna remained under Martial Law until 1966.
Deir Hanna forms the Land Day triangle with Sakhnin and Arraba. The town has been through a thorough modernization process, and now has a full education system, health care facilities and sports playgrounds.
Demographics
Historical buildings and structures The old village forms a square block and within it are nearly all of Deir Hanna's 18th-century structures. These include the fortifications, palace, mosque, as well as many smaller structures and the 19th-century church.
Edwards et al compared Deir Hanna to the throne villages of the central Palestinian highlands, the rural seats of local sheikhs which incorporated elements of urban architecture. They noted Deir Hanna in many respects exceeded the throne villages by the sophistication of its architecture, which may have been inspired by that of the Zayadina's urban contemporaries, the Azm family of governors in Damascus. In particular they noted the traditional urban Islamic arrangement of the palace-mosque-fortress complex, like that of the Azm Palace-Umayyad Mosque. This was a reflection of both the Zayadina's great wealth and the special status they conferred on Deir Hanna and its immediate environs, on whose inhabitants the Zayadina most relied to maintain their power.
Fortifications According to archaeologist Andrew Petersen, Deir Hanna "is the best example of a fortified village in [the] Galilee". Of the original twelve towers built by the Zayadina, the remains of four, along with many sections of the walls, were discernible in the 1992 survey of the site (five towers had been discernible in the 1920 survey). Substantial sections of the fortifications remain and the village remained delimited by the perimeter of the original fortress until at least 1960, with no residences built outside of it.