About two km east of Kafr Malik, at 'Ain Samiya (grid: 1817/1550), are buildings, possibly dating to the Crusader era.[5]
Kafr Malik has been identified with the village Caphermelic of the Crusader period.[6][7] In addition, Kafr Malik has been suggested as being identical to Beth HaMelekh, where Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus besieged his Pharisee adversaries.[8]
Ottoman era
Kafr Malik was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the nahiya of Al-Quds in the liwa of Al-Quds. It had a population of 21 household,[9] who were all Muslims. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 7,750 akçe.[9]
In 1838, ‘’Kefr Malik’’ was noted as a Muslim village in the District of Beni Salim, east of Jerusalem.[10]
In 1870, Victor Guérin found Kafr Malik to have 350 inhabitants, some thirty Catholics and fifteen "schismatic Greek"; the others were Muslim. In the courtyard of the medhafeh, or guesthouse, he was shown several beautiful stone plaques and three sections of columns and several capitals of the Doric form belonging to an old edifice long since destroyed.[11]
An Ottoman village list of about 1870 counted a population of 416 Muslims in 77 houses, and 15 Christians in 6 houses. In total 432 persons in 83 houses, though the population count included men, only.[12][13]
In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,100; 1,080 Muslims and 20 Christians,[18] while the total land area was 52,196 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[19] Of this, 3,580 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 10,984 for cereals,[20] while 53 dunams were classified as built-up areas.[21]
In June 2023, it was the target – along with nearby Turmus Ayya and several other Palestinian villages – of Israeli settler terror attacks.[24] After the attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson called the incursions and attacks by armed Jewish settlers "acts of terror conducted by criminals",[24] adding that the IDF had “failed to prevent” the attacks, described as “very grave”, and that such incidents "create terror" by pushing the attacked civilian populations "towards extremism".[25]
Footnotes
^West BankArchived 2008-12-19 at the Wayback Machine Local Elections ( Round two)- Successful candidates by local authority, gender and No. of votes obtained, Kofr Malik p 21
