The name Deir Qaddis has long been surmised to an Arabic one. In the 19th century, the name was interpreted to mean "monastery of the saint".[3] The second part of the name, Qaddis, means a holy person and is of Aramaic origin.[6]
History
French explorer Victor Guérin found in the Kharbet (=ruin) Deir Kaddis remains of houses built with large blocks and several cisterns dug into the rock,[7] while SWP (1882) notes a ruined monastery and cave near by the village, and that the name of the village indicates that a convent once existed here.[8]
A survey by Finkelstein and Lederman uncovered no ancient pottery.[9]
Ottoman era
The village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as Dayr Qiddis in the Nahiya of Ramlah of the Liwa of Gazza. It had a population of 11 households, all Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive- and fruit trees, goats and beehives, and a press for olives or grapes; a total of 5,400 akçe.[10]
No sherds from the early Ottoman era have been found here.[11] In 1838 Deir el-Kaddis was noted as a village, located in the Beni Hasan area, west of Jerusalem.[12][13][14]
In 1863 Guérin estimated that Deir Kaddis had about 350 inhabitants,[7] while an Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed Der Kaddis had 36 houses and a population of 112, though the population count included only the men.[15][16]
In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Deir el Kuddis as a "small hamlet on a high hill-top, with gardens to the north [..] There is a well on the east."[8]
In the 1945 statistics, the population of Deir Qaddis was 440 Muslims,[19] with 8,224 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[20] 1,815 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 1,069 dunams for cereals,[21] while 8 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[22]
The Jordanian census of 1961 found 752 inhabitants in Deir Qaddis.[23]
Post-1967
Deir Qaddis came under Israeli occupation during the 1967 Six-Day War. The population in the 1967 census conducted by the Israeli authorities was 461, 25 of whom originated from the Israeli territory.[24]
After the 1995 accords, 7.7% of the village's total area has been classified as Area B land, while the remaining 93.3% is Area C.[5]
According to ARIJ, Israel has confiscated land from Deir Qaddis in order to construct three Israeli settlements:
Part of the village land was separated from Deir Qaddis after Israel finished the Israeli West Bank barrier in 2008. The first time the villagers were given permission to access their land behind the barrier was in 2012.[26]
The town today contains a mosque, three schools (two primary and one secondary), two medical clinics and a sports club.
The town's prominent families are Husain, Qattosa, Nasser, Abu Zeid, Hamada, Awadh, Abu Laban and Kreish.[27]
^Finkelstein, Israel; Lederman, Zvi; Bunimovitz, Shlomo (1997). Finkelstein, Israel; Lederman, Zvi (eds.). Highlands of Many Cultures. Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Publications Section. p. 192. ISBN965-440-007-3.
