Janīn

Janīn, also spelled Jenīn, town in the West Bank. Originally administered as part of the British mandate of Palestine (1920–48), Janīn was in the area annexed by Jordan in 1950 following the first of the Arab-Israeli wars (1948–49). After the Six-Day War of 1967, it was part of the West Bank territory under Israeli occupation until coming under the administration of the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

The original ancient settlement is mentioned in the Amarna Letters, a series of 14th-century-bce diplomatic documents found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. Some authorities identify it with the biblical Levitical city of ʿEn Gannim (Hebrew: “Gardens’ Spring”; Levitical cities were allocated because the Levites were not participants in the territorial division of the Holy Land among the tribes). In the Middle Ages the town was taken by the Crusaders, who called it Le Grand Gerin. Janīn was a Turkish-German base in World War I; a memorial to fallen German aviators remains. It was an important centre for Jordanian and Iraqi forces in the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948; though much of the strategic territory in the vicinity was taken by Israel, Janīn remained in Arab hands.

Lying in a well-settled agricultural region, Janīn has long been the chief regional marketing centre; wheat, olives, dates, carobs, and figs are grown in the vicinity. Ruins of a Byzantine church have been excavated in the town. Pop. (2005 est.) 46,600.