According to E. H. Palmer in 1881, the name Leileh comes from a female proper name; it also means “night”.[1]
History
In 1875, Victor Guérin describes a ruin to the east of the village, which he calls Kh. Kleileh. "The upright of oil-presses, a winepress cut in the rock, with two compartments, one round and one square, and three broken sarcophagi, are all that remain here. A short distance south of this place he found another ruined hamlet, having a cistern cut in the rock, and an enormous millstone lying on the ground, called Kh. Ratieh".[2]
In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it: "A small well-built stone village, containing about 50 Moslems, surrounded by olives and arable ground. The water supply is from 'Ain Zaheiriyeh."[3]
On 13 May 2021, shortly after the beginning of the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, a number of rockets – apparently Soviet-era short-range Grad projectiles – were fired from the coastal area of Al-Qlailah, just south of the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidieh towards northern Israel. According to some reports, three rockets were involved which all fell into the Mediterranean Sea, causing no damage.[4][5] According to other sources, altogether five missiles were launched and two of them crashed onto Lebanese grounds, while three got lost off the coast.[6]
Demographics
In 2014 Muslims made up 99.38% of registered voters in Al-Qlailah. 98.06% of the voters were Shiite Muslims.[7]
