Surif

Surif (Arabic: صوريف) is a Palestinian City in the Hebron Governorate located 25 km northwest of the city of Hebron. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics census, Surif had a population of 17,287 in 2017.^[1] The population is entirely Muslim.

Surif
Municipality type A (City)
Arabic transcription(s)
• Arabic	صوريف
Pastoral scene near Surif village
Surif Location of Surif within Palestine
Coordinates: 31°39′02″N 35°03′58″E
Palestine grid	156/117
State	State of Palestine
Governorate	Hebron
Government
• Type	City
• Head of Municipality	Ahmad Lafi
Area
• Total	15,034 dunams (15.0 km2 or 5.8 sq mi)
Population  (2017)[1]
• Total	17,287
• Density	1,200/km2 (3,000/sq mi)
Name meaning	from personal name[2]

Most of the town's 15,000 dunams is used for agriculture, in particular, olives, wheat and barley.^[3] There are seven mosques and four schools located in its vicinity.

Ahmad Lafi is the mayor.^[4]

History

Ottoman period

Oral tradition suggests that Surif was founded after the 16th century.^[5] In 1838 Surif was noted as a Muslim village, located between Hebron and Gaza, but subjected to the government of Hebron.^[6]

In 1863 Victor Guérin found Surif to be a village with 700 inhabitants. He further noted that beside a birket in the rock, a few cisterns and an ancient column shaft which was placed near a small mosque, all of Surif's constructions seemed more or less modern.^[7] An official Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed 87 houses and a population of 265, counting men only.^[8][9] In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Surif as "A small village on a low hill, with olives to the south."^[10] In 1896 the population of Surif was 1,164.^[11]

British Mandate

According to the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Surif had a population of 1,265 inhabitants, all Muslims,^[12] increasing in the 1931 census to 1,640, in 344 inhabited houses.^[13]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Surif was 2,190, all Muslims,^[14] with a total of 38,876 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.^[15] Of this, 3,493 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 11.325 for cereals,^[16] while 54 dunams were built-up (urban) land.^[17]

• 
  Surif, British Mandate map, 1:20,000
• 
  Surif 1945 1:250,000
• 
  View of Surif
• 
  Example of traditional Palestinian cross-stitch from Surif (2006)

Jordanian rule

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Surif came under Jordanian rule.

The Jordanian census of 1961 found 2,827 inhabitants in Surif.^[18]

Post-1967

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Surif has been under Israeli occupation.

Israel has confiscated approximately 1,213 dunams of land from Surif since 2000, and approximately 1,300 dunums of Surif lands will be behind the Israeli West Bank barrier, when it is finished.^[19]

In April 2023, the village was attacked for three days by dozens of settlers who broke into the village, injured residents with stones and vandalized and burned olive trees and residences. The attack by the settlers was carried out with the backing of an army that used gunfire and tear gas against residents who tried to defend themselves from the attackers. Since 2021, six cases of settler attacks have been documented, which included destruction of crops, damage to residences and injury to residents.^[20]

Surif Pogrom (2025)

The Surif pogrom refers to a series of violent attacks perpetrated by Israeli settlers, under the protection of the Israeli military, against the Palestinian town of Surif in the southern West Bank during June and July 2025. On 19 June 2025, settlers from a newly established illegal outpost established on pribate Palestinian land opened fire on Palestinian residents attempting to extinguish fires deliberately set in farmland in the al-Qarnat area, murdering 48-year-old Mohammad Ahmad Mahmoud al-Hour and injuring eight others, some critically.^{[21][22][23][24]} The On 9 July 2025, another settler raid occurred in the al-Watwat area near the illegal settlement of Bat Ain, during which a 45-year-old Palestinian man was shot in the thigh, others were physically assaulted, and large swathes of agricultural land were set ablaze.^{[25][26][27][28]} The attacks were part of a broader escalation in settler violence across the West Bank in 2025. The Palestinian Authority’s Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission reported more than 2,100 settler attacks in the first half of the year, resulting in at least four Palestinian fatalities and widespread destruction of property and farmland.^[29]

Demography

Surif was originally settled by people from nearby Beit Ummar and possibly others. Some of the residents came from Salqa (a location of unknown identity near Gaza^[30]), al-Majdal and Gaza. It is also known as "Kuffin a-Tahta" since its residents, as those of Beit Ummar, lived there in the 16th century.^[31]