As-Sawiya

As-Sawiya was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal of the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 40 households and 2 bachelors, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, occasional revenues, goats and beehives; a total of 8,610 akçe. All of the revenue went to a Waqf.[9]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the village formed part of the highland region known as Jūrat ‘Amra or Bilād Jammā‘īn. Situated between Dayr Ghassāna in the south and the present Route 5 in the north, and between Majdal Yābā in the west and Jammā‘īn, Mardā and Kifl Ḥāris in the east, this area served, according to historian Roy Marom, "as a buffer zone between the political-economic-social units of the Jerusalem and the Nablus regions. On the political level, it suffered from instability due to the migration of the Bedouin tribes and the constant competition among local clans for the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Ottoman authorities.”[10]

In 1838 Robinson noted As-Sawiya being situated on a hill,[11] located in the Jurat Merda district, south of Nablus.[12]

In 1870 Victor Guérin found that it had three hundred inhabitants, and that the villagers had a mosque.[13]

In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya (sub-district) of Jamma'in al-Thani, subordinate to Nablus.[14]

In 1882, the PEF’s Survey of Western Palestine described Sawiya as "a little village on a hill overhanging the road."[15]

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, As-Sawiya (called: Sawiyeh) had a population of 476, all Muslims,[16] while in the 1931 census it had 128 occupied houses and a population of 596, again all Muslim.[17]

In the 1945 statistics Es Sawiya had a population of 820, all Muslims,[18] with 10,787 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[19] Of this, 4,394 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 3,412 used for cereals,[20] while 40 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[21]

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, As-Sawiya came under Jordanian rule.

The Jordanian census of 1961 found 1,151 inhabitants.[22]

"Kill or deport." Graffiti spray-painted in Hebrew by Israeli settlers on the wall of a home in As-Sawiya, 2018

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, As-Sawiya has been under Israeli occupation.

After the 1995 accords, approximately 14% of villageland was classified as Area B, the remaining 86% as Area C. Israel has confiscated 1,551 dunums of village land for the Israeli settlement of Alie, and 376 dunams for Rechalim.[23]

As-Sawiya is entirely dependent on its agricultural land. Prior to the Second Intifada, about 250 of the village's residents worked in Israel, but in 2004 only three continued working there. The primary crops grown in as-Sawiya are wheat, olives, grapes, figs, and beans. The land is also used for grazing livestock. Some residents produce yoghurt from their cows and sell it. Local residents sell olive oil to nearby villages such as Lubban as well. Stone-cutting is the most important industry in the town after agriculture.[1]

According to locals, village life has been "deeply affected" by harassment from Jewish settlers. "People cannot go and harvest their land. The settlers take our olives, they throw rocks at people."[24]