Deir Dibwan

Deir Dibwan (دير دبوان) is a Palestinian city in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank east of Ramallah. It is also the capital of the Eastern District with Mr. Iyad Mohammad Habbas Al-Awawdah the mayor. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics the town had a population of 4,169 inhabitants in 2017. There were 5,016 people from Deir Dibwan living abroad. Deir Dibwan was built close to the ruins of Et-Tell.

Name
The word "Deir" means monastery and the word "dibwan" came from the name of the "divan", or Council. It has also been called Deir Dubwan, where "Dubwan" is a proper name.

Location
Deir Dibwan is located 6.4 km (horizontally) east of Ramallah. It is bordered by Ein ad-Duyuk al-Foqa to the east, Rammun and Ein Yabrud to the north, Beitin and Burqa to the west and Mukhmas  and 'Anata  to the south.

History
Just west of the village is et-Tell, an archaeological mound commonly identified with Ai of the Bible. South of the town is another ruin, Khirbet el-Haiyan.

Potsherds from the Middle Bronze Age, Iron Age II, Hellenistic/Roman, Byzantine, Crusader/Ayyubid and Mamluk era have been found.

Deir Dibwan have been identified with the Crusader site named Dargebaam, or Dargiboan.

Ottoman era
In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman empire with the rest of Palestine, and in the 1596 tax-records it appeared as duhaniyya, located in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Al-Quds. The population was 71 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, such as  wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards/fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 30,000 akçe. Potsherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found.

In 1838, Edward Robinson described Deir Dibwan as being "tolerably wealthy", and reportedly the producer of great quantities of figs. It was noted as a Muslim village, located in the area immediately north of Jerusalem.

The Victor Guérin visited the village in July 1863, and described it as having five hundred inhabitants, situated on a rocky plateau. The highest point of the plateau was occupied by the remains of an old construction, which people referred to as Ed-Deir (the Monastery). He also note several cisterns dug into the rock, which he assumed dated from antiquity. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that "Der Diwan" had 161 houses and a population of 459, though the population count included only men.

In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Deir Diwan as a "large and well-built stone village, standing on flat ground, with a rugged valley to the north and open ground to the south. There are a few scattered olives round the place. The inhabitants are partly Christian."

In 1896 the population of Der Diwan was estimated to be about 1,338 persons.

British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, the village, called Dair Dilwan, had a population of 1,382 Muslims, while in the 1931 census, the village had 384 occupied houses and a population of 1,688, still all Muslims.

In the 1945 statistics the population was 2,080 Muslims, while the total land area was 73,332 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 5,052 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 10,695 for cereals, while 164 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

Jordanian era
In the wake the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Deir Dibwan came under Jordanian rule. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950.

In 1961, the population of Deir Dibwan was 2,812.

1967–present
Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Deir Dibwan has been under Israeli occupation.

After the 1995 accords, 0.2% of the village land was classified as Area A, 16.8% as Area B, and the remaining 83% as Area C. Israel has confiscated about 1,287 dunums of land from Deir Dibwan in order to construct the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Mikhmas. In May 2024 Israeli settlers attacked Deir Dibwan from the east, burning tents and sheep pens.

Migron
According to the Israeli government, Israel's Supreme Court, and the Israeli organisation Peace Now, the land the illegal Israeli settlement of Migron sits on is owned by a number of Palestinian families living in Burqa and Deir Dibwan.

In August 2008 the settler leadership of Migron were to vote on an Israeli Defense Ministry proposal to relocate the unauthorized Migron outpost, possibly to an undeveloped area of a nearby settlement. From the Israeli government-commissioned Sasson Report it was concluded that more than 4 million NIS of public funds were illegally invested in the outpost. On 17 December 2006 the Israeli State responded a petition from the legal owners, Palestinians from Deir Dibwan and Burqa, the Israeli State admitted that there was never any authorisation from any official, granted for its establishment. In addition the Israeli State admitted the outpost stands on private Palestinian land. After Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to evacuate the unauthorized outpost of Migron the Israeli State Prosecution informed the Israeli High Court of Justice of the decision.

Deir Dibwan Association
The Deir Debwan Association is headquartered in New Jersey, United States. Membership is not limited to any specific clan or tribe. It has representatives from each clan or tribe, as well as refugee groups living in the town. The association serves to provide a link to the town, a source of identity to its members, to increase their members' honor and increase the town's honor as well. This association provides a source of honor for those in the United States and for relatives in the town.

Shrine of ash-Sheikh Ammar
Southeast of the village is the shrine of ash-Sheikh Ammar (الشيخ عمار), a religious site associated with Ammar ibn Yasir, a companion of Muhammad. According to local villagers, Ammar ibn Yasir passed through the area during one of his raids and stopped to pray. The tomb is a pilgrimage site for the Bedouin tribes of Ka'abneh and Jahalin, as well as villages east of the watershed. In 1999, villagers built a mosque in his honor, and in 2016, the site was renovated and turned into an amusement park named al-Biyara.

Notable people

 * Kamel Muhyieddeen (1928–1984), Palestinian political figure