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Qalqilya
Qalqilya mosque and houses
Arabic	قلقيلية
Government	City
Governorate	Qalqilya
Population	44,700 (2006)
Jurisdiction	25,637 dunams (25.6 km²)
Head of Municipality	Marouf Zahran

Qalqilyah (Arabic قلقيلية Qalqīlyaḧ; Hebrew קַלְקִילִיָה) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. Most of the residents are farmers, and constant contact with Israeli farmers prior to the erection of the Israeli West Bank barrier made many residents of Qalqīlyah bilingual. The town is located in the West Bank's closest point to the Mediterranean Sea, 12 kilometers (7 mi) from the coastline. As of 2006, the town had an estimated population of 38,000 and was completely encircled by the separation barrier.

MEP Véronique De Keyser talks to the Mayor of Qalqilyah beside the security wall in February 2004

The town's area has been populated from prehistoric times, and prehistoric flint tools were found in the modern town's area. In Roman times, a way-station existed in the location called Cala-c'Aliya. Invading armies, many of which came from the Mediterranean coast just 12 km away, often came through Qalqilyah. The ancient Israelite town of Kaballah is thought to be the nearby village of Habla. Its current name comes from the Arabic Qala'alia, meaning high fortress. During the subsequent Muslim rules of the area, the town was populated with Arab inhabitants.

Residents established an independent local council in 1909, and by 1945, a municipal council. In World War I, a few Jewish families settled in the town after being evicted from Tel Aviv by the ruling Turks.

Thousands of landless Palestinian refugees swarmed the city after the Arab defeat in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and made one city quarter their home. Known as the people of Kafr Saba and Arab Abu Kishek, the refugees got UNRWA help, but a refugee camp was never created because local politicians negotiated UN help for the whole city in return for integrating the refugees.

In the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Jordan, the town was included in the Jordanian-occupied area, together with the rest of the West Bank.

After the town came under Israeli occupation in the 1967 Six-Day War, a military order was given to destroy it and expel the inhabitants. Between 9 June and 18 July 1967 at least 850 out of 2,000 dwellings in Qalqilyah were destroyed, until a group of Israeli intellectuals and academics intervened with the government and the order was cancelled.^[1]

Following the Oslo Accords, the town came under the juristriction of the Palestinian Authority. Qalqilya was the scene of the first fireclash in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, on September 29, 2000 in Jerusalem), when a Palestinian police officer working with Israeli police on a joint patrol opened fire and killed his Israeli counterpart. Since then Israeli security forces routinely enter the town and arrest suspects.

Since 2003, the Israeli West Bank barrier has been built to completely encircle Qalqilyah, separating the city from lands on both sides of the wall, leading to anger and protests from many of the citizens of the city.

Between 1967-1995 almost 80 percent of Qalqilya's labor force worked for Israeli companies or industries in the construction and agriculture sectors. The other 20% engaged in trade and commerce, and many if not most of their traditional markets are across the green line.

The mayor of Qalqilyah belongs to Hamas. He was recently released from an Israeli prison.

However, the Qalqilya Governorate was one of only three governorates where Fatah won over Hamas in the Palestinian election of 2006.

Palestine, Mariam Shahin and George Azar 2005, ISBN 1-56656-557-X

1. ^ Nur Masalha, [1]; Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, Washington Post, February 7, 1988.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Qalqilyah

• UNRWA Profile:Qalqilya Town Update 2004
• Irish eyes in the Westbank