page_title: Peasants' revolt in Palestine
section_title: Defeat of the rebels in Jabal Nablus
hierarchical_section_title: Peasants' revolt in Palestine / Revolt / Defeat of the rebels in Jabal Nablus
caption_attribution_description: English: Ottoman fortress at Yarkon National Park, Israel
context_page_description: The Peasants' Revolt was a rebellion against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies in Palestine. While rebel ranks consisted mostly of the local peasantry, urban notables and Bedouin tribes also formed an integral part of the revolt, which was a collective reaction to Egypt's gradual elimination of the unofficial rights and privileges previously enjoyed by the various classes of society in the Levant under Ottoman rule.
  As part of Muhammad Ali's modernization policies, Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian governor of the Levant, issued conscription orders for a fifth of all Muslim males of fighting age. Encouraged by rural sheikh Qasim al-Ahmad, the urban notables of Nablus, Hebron and the Jerusalem-Jaffa area did not carry out Ibrahim Pasha's orders to conscript, disarm and tax the local peasantry. The religious notables of Safad followed suit. Qasim and other local leaders rallied their kinsmen and revolted against the authorities in May 1834, taking control of several towns. While the core of the fighting was in the central mountain regions of Palestine, the revolt also spread to the Galilee, Gaza and parts of Transjordan.
context_section_description: Qasim responded to the arrest of the Jerusalemite notables by cancelling his truce with Muhammad Ali and rallying the rebels of Jabal Nablus. He asserted that the truce negotiations had been a ruse to hold off the rebels until the arrival of reinforcements from Egypt. The rebels' strategy in Jabal Nablus was to split their forces (30,000 fighters) into three divisions and fight Ibrahim Pasha's troops on three fronts: Ras al-Ayn, the approaches of the Galilee, and Nablus city. On 24 June Bedouin not directly affiliated to Qasim's irregulars attacked Ibrahim Pasha's camp in Palestine's coastal plain. Four days of battle then followed between the rebels and Ibrahim Pasha's men at Ras al-Ayn, until the fortress in that village was captured by the Egyptians on 28 June.
  On 30 June Muhammad Ali landed in Jaffa with 15,000 troops from Egypt and on 2 July he convened with his son Ibrahim Pasha at Ramla, which was captured along with Lydda by Egyptian commander Salim Pasha who led Ali's military convoy. In Ramla, the arrested Jerusalemite notables were assembled. Ali ordered the arrest of rebel leaders Qasim, his sons Yusuf and Muhammad, Abdullah Jarrar and Isa al-Barqawi. He dispatched army commander Salim Pasha to Ali then instructed his ally Bashir Shihab II of Mount Lebanon to back Egyptian forces in the Sidon Eyalet. Meanwhile, Sulayman Abd al-Hadi and Ibrahim Abu Ghosh requested the release of Jabr Abu Ghosh from prison. In return for the allegiance of the Abu Ghosh clan, Ali heeded their request, released Jabr and appointed him mutassalim of Jerusalem in place of Muhammad al-Qasim, who had defected to the rebels at the start of the revolt.
  Jabr immediately commenced an operation to disarm the people of the Jerusalem region, ordering the execution of anyone found with a weapon. Ali personally ordered the decapitations of the mutasallims of Ramla and Lydda and of the headmen of rebellious villages near Jaffa. Acre was recaptured by the Egyptians and 2,000 of its inhabitants were killed in the process. After receiving personal assurances from Husayn Abd al-Hadi that he would enforce Ibrahim Pasha's rule in Palestine, Ali departed for Egypt on 6 July.
  Ibrahim Pasha continued his expedition against the rebels of Jabal Nablus, pursuing them at Zeita. Ninety rebels were slain while the rest fled to Deir al-Ghusun, situated on a hilltop to the east of Zeita. At Deir al-Ghusun, many of the inhabitants and rebels heeded a call by Husayn Abd al-Hadi to flee once the Egyptian troops arrived. In response, Qasim had several of the defectors among his ranks killed. Ibrahim Pasha's troops stormed the hill and the rebels (mostly members of the Qasim, Jarrar, Jayyusi and Barqawi clans) were routed, suffering 300 fatalities. Most of the surviving rebels, including Qasim and his son Yusuf, who were both wounded, fled. Captured rebels of fighting age were sent to Egypt for professional military training, while older rebels had their right hands cut off.
  Following the rebels' rout at Deir al-Ghusun on 14 July, Ibrahim Pasha's troops proceeded to Nablus unhindered, passing through Arraba, the loyalist stronghold of the Abd al-Hadi family, and then through Sanur, the throne village of the Jarrar clan. When they entered Nablus on 15 July, no resistance was put up, and shortly afterward, the rest of Jabal Nablus submitted to Muhammad Ali's troops. For the most part, due to the loyalty of the Abd al-Hadi's to Muhammad Ali, and the neutrality of the powerful Nimr clan, the inhabitants of the city of Nablus had not participated in the revolt. From Nablus, Ibrahim Pasha dispatched his troops north to occupy Jenin and Nazareth, before arriving in Jerusalem on 20 July with 30,000 new conscripts.
caption: The fortress at Ras al-Ayn
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