Yaroun

Geography

Yaroun sits on a hill 750–900 meters above sea level. The main agricultural products of Yaroun are olives, wheat, and tobacco.

Yaroun lies on the Israeli–Lebanese border. It overlooks Yir'on and Avivim in Israel.

History

Antiquity

It has been suggested that Yaroun is the biblical town of Iron/Jiron, mentioned in as a village belonging to the Tribe of Naphtali.

Ottoman period

In 1596, it was named as a village, يارون النصارى (Yarun an-Nasara meaning “Yarun of the Christians”) in the Ottoman nahiya (subdistrict) of Tibnin under the liwa' (district) of Safad, with a population of 37 Muslim households and 20 Muslim bachelors, and 39 Christian households and 11 Christian bachelors. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, such as wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 7,247 akçe.

In 1674, western travelers saw remains of a monastery and church near by, with fragments from many columns.

In 1781 Nasif al-Nassar was killed here by Jazzar Pasha when their two armies met.

In 1838, Edward Robinson noted it as "a large village".

On 31 December 1863, Louis Félicien de Saulcy, the French orientalist and archaeologist left Jish and arrived in Yaroun, and despite the heavy rain on that day, he examined the ruins of a temple, with a huge sarcophagi and sepulchral excavations cut into the rock, and a square well few meters deep, deducing that Yaroun was the Biblical town of Iaraoun, one of the cities of the Naphtali tribe mentioned in the Book of Joshua (xiv. 38).

According to Victor Guérin, who visited in 1870, the town had 300 Greek Orthodox Christians and 200 Shia Muslims. He described the local church, devoted to St. George ("Mar Jiris") as simple and modest, and pointed out a Greek inscription and a decoration of a date tree in the local mosque, which, according to the inscription, were once part of a nearby temple.

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it: “A stone village, containing about 200 Metawileh and 200 Christians ; a Christian chapel in the village. The village is situated on the edge of a plain, with vineyards and arable land; to the west rises a basalt-top called el Burj, dotted with cisterns, and said to be the site of an ancient castle."

SWP also found here the remains of an ancient Church, with Greek inscriptions.

Modern period

By the 1945 statistics the population was counted with Saliha and Maroun al-Ras, to a total of 1070 Muslims, with 11,735 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 7,401 dunams were allocated to cereals, 422 dunams were irrigated or used for orchards, while 58 dunams were built-up (urban) area.

In the 1970s, a small group of immigrants from Yaroun, fleeing the Lebanese Civil War, settled in Bell, California. They founded a Lebanese American community that has since grown to about 2,000 members.

In July 2006, Yaroun, like many other villages along Lebanon's southern border, were caught by the 2006 Lebanon War between Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Forces. On 23 July, five civilians were killed in an Israeli strike in Yaroun; victims were aged between 6 months and 75 years old.

In October 2023 and the months succeeding it, Yaroun was caught in the crossfire of another conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. As a result, Yaroun was subjected to significant Israeli airstrikes and shelling, which resulted in the destruction of much of the village and total displacement of its residents.

In October 2024, Israel launched a ground incursion into the village and detonated the Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib Mosque, an incident that was recorded and posted on various social media channels. Later on, IDF released drone footage of the mostly ravaged village. As of 2025, the village lays in ruins, with most of its infrastructure completely destroyed.

Demographics

In 2009, there were 365 members of the Saint-Georges parish of the Melkite Church in the village.

As of 2010, the village had a year-round population of around 2,000 (pre-war) though this number rose to about 4,000 in the summer months.

In 2014 Muslims made up 75.59% and Christians made up 24.16% of registered voters in Yaroun. 74.89% of the voters were Shiite Muslims and 21.31% were Greek Catholics.

Social life

While the majority of Yarounis visit Yaroun for the summer, most of Yaroun natives reside outside of Lebanon, in Australia, USA, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and South Africa.

Notable persons

• Eid Hourany (1940 – 2008), French and Lebanese nuclear physicist
• Youssef Hourany (1931 – 2019), Lebanese writer, archeologist and historian
• Dominique Hourani (born 1985), Lebanese recording artist, actress, and former model
• Mohamad Kdouh (born 1997), Lebanese footballer

References

Bibliography

• Claude Assaf, "Pourquoi Aïta el-Chaab, Yaroun et Meïs el-Jabal sont parmi les villages les plus ciblés au Liban-Sud par Israël", L'Orient-Le Jour, 28 décembre 2023.
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References

1. From personal name, according to Palmer, 1881, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp00conduoft#page/104/mode/1up 104] "perhaps the Iron of Josh. xix 38"
2. (2021-01-02). "Tel Rosh: The forgotten Rehob in the Upper Galilee". Palestine Exploration Quarterly.
3. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 179.
4. Note that Rhode, 1979, p. [https://www.academia.edu/2026845/The_Administration_and_Population_of_the_Sancak_of_Safed_in_the_Sixteenth_Century 6] {{Webarchive. link. (2016-10-10 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9)
5. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, p. [https://archive.org/stream/biblicalresearch03robiuoft#page/371/mode/1up 371]
6. Blanford, 2011, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=lJWGvIcmODoC&pg=PA12 12]-13
7. [[Ernest Renan]] visited Yaroun during his mission to [[Lebanon]] and described what he found in his book [[Mission de Phénicie (1865-1874)]]. He found many antiquities at Yaroun.Renan, 1864, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=UpxZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA680 680]-2
8. Saulcy de, Louis Félicien, ''Voyage en Terre Sainte'', Volume 2, Nabu Press (April 1, 2010), pages 275-276
9. Guérin, 1880, pp. [https://archive.org/details/descriptiongogr00gugoog/page/105/mode/1up?view=theater 105]-106
10. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp01conduoft#page/203/mode/1up 203]
11. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, pp. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp01conduoft#page/258/mode/1up 258]-260
12. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. [http://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/yabber/census/VSpages/VS1945_p11.jpg 11]
13. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945''. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20I/Safad/Page-071.jpg 71]
14. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945''. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20II/Safad/Page-121.jpg 121]
15. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20III/Safad/Page-171.jpg 171]
16. Moodian, Michael. "Unity Through Crisis: How a Latino and Lebanese American Coalition Helped Save Democracy in the City of Bell." (2015). pp. v, 8-9
17. [https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-08-20-lebanon-christian_x.htm USATODAY.com - Archbishop tells church to stay in Lebanon: 'You'll make it']
18. HRW, 2007, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8P9-VqpNRv4C&pg=PA109 109]
19. (29 November 2023). "People in southern Lebanon, rushing home amid truce, hope fighting is over". SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY.
20. (8 October 2024). "Middle East Crisis Updates: Israel Targets Hezbollah Official in Strike in Damascus". The New York Times.
21. "Territory and statistics".
22. admin. (2014-03-28). "Yaroun Village Profile, UNDP, 2010".
23. https://lub-anan.com/المحافظات/النبطية/بنت-جبيل/يارون/المذاهب/
24. "Global Sports Archive".