Margaliot

Margaliot מַרְגָּלִיּוֹת‎
View of Margaliot
Margaliot
Coordinates: 33°12′52″N 35°32′41″E
Country	Israel
District	Northern
Council	Mevo'ot HaHermon
Affiliation	Moshavim Movement
Founded	1951
Founded by	Jewish immigrants from Yemen and Iraq.
Population  (2022)	412

For other uses, see Margaliot (disambiguation).

Margaliot (Hebrew: מַרְגָּלִיּוֹת) is a moshav in northern Israel. Located along the border with Lebanon in the Upper Galilee, near the town of Kiryat Shmona, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mevo'ot HaHermon Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 412, most of them Mizrahi Jews.

Name

The moshav was named after agronomist Haim Margaliot-Kalvarisky, a principal director of the Jewish Colonization Association who was appointed by Baron Edmond de Rothschild to supervise the work of Jewish colonies in Galilee in the early twentieth century.

History

A settlement existed at the site in the Iron Age I (1200-1000 BCE), and again from the Persian period (586-332 BCE) until the latter part of the Byzantine period (5th-6th centuries CE).

The ruins of the Crusader and Ottoman castle

The Crusader castle of Chastel Neuf (in medieval French) or Castellum Novum (in Latin), lit. "New Castle", was built around 1106-1107 immediately north of the current moshav. Refortified by Mamluk sultan Baibars in 1266, the castle was completely rebuilt in the 18th century by Zahir al-Umar, who ruled the Galilee in the 18th century (1730s–1775). Remains of the castle, covering an area of 9 dunams, include a rock-hewn Crusader moat, cisterns, and a vaulted gatehouse and other wall remains from the 18th century.

The moshav was built in part on the grounds of the former Shiite Arab Palestinian village of Hunin, established in the 18th century and depopulated during the 1948 war.

Margaliot was established in 1951, by Jewish immigrants from Yemen and Iraq, on the site of the depopulated Arab village.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, 230 residents of Margaliot were evacuated to the Neve Hadassah youth village near Netanya due to Katyusha rocket fire from Lebanon.

In the 2023 conflict between Hamas and Israel, Hezbollah targeted northern Israeli border communities, forcing evacuations, including in Margaliot. On October 21, two foreign workers from Thailand were wounded by shrapnel in an attack by Hezbollah in the Margaliot area. In March 2024, an anti-tank missile launched by Hezbollah on Margaliot resulted in the death of a foreign worker from India. In May 2024, the settlement cut all contact with the Israeli government and demanded the IDF's withdrawal.

Notable residents

• Yossi Sarid (1940–2015), politician and news commentator