Na'aran (Israeli Settlement)

Na'aran is a kibbutz in the Jordan Valley, in the Jericho subdistrict of the Judea and Samaria Area, and is administered by the Jordan Valley Regional Council. The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics identifies it as locality code 3620.[1] The locality was officially renamed from Niran to Na'aran in 2018.[2] Its population was recorded as 109 in the 2022 locality file.[1]

Sources give different dates for the settlement's establishment and describe several stages in its development. A Jerusalem Post account says Niran was established in 1971 as a Nahal settlement and became a civilian kibbutz in 1977. It was named after an ancient city but lies several kilometers north of that site.[3] Encyclopedia.com instead gives 1970 as its founding year and marks the locality as beyond the pre-1967 borders.[4]

Ynet describes 1977 as the kibbutz's first establishment by graduates of the Noar HaOved VeHaLomed youth movement.[5] Following a severe social crisis, the community broke up and was abandoned during 1993. It stood empty for six years before graduates of the Machanot HaOlim movement revived it.[5] In 2018, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics recorded the locality's name change from Niran to Na'aran.[2] The community is listed among the Jordan Valley Regional Council's localities.[6]

The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics 2022 locality file records Na'aran's total population as 109, of whom 108 are Jewish.[1] The settlement falls within the Jericho subdistrict and is associated with the regional council known in Hebrew as מועצה אזורית ערבות הירדן (Jordan Valley Regional Council).[1] A National Library of Israel catalog record for a regional newspaper published from 2007 to 2009 includes Na'aran in its list of Jordan Valley localities and identifies the Jordan Valley Regional Council as publisher.[7]

As of a 2006 report, Na'aran's livelihood was based almost entirely on education.[5] Members held educational roles that included managing the Machanot HaOlim youth movement, serving as youth coordinators in nearby communities, and operating a workshop center whose seminars addressed Zionism, Judaism, and Israeli society.[5] An educational program also saw kibbutz members accompany high-school students on a week-long journey across Israel.[5]

The kibbutz at that time combined collective and individual economic arrangements: members' salaries were pooled into a common fund, while each member also received a personal monthly budget.[5] Shared assets included cars and a date-palm plantation, and a communal dining room operated on weekends and holidays.[5] The 2006 report described decisions as emerging from discussion at weekly kibbutz meetings and said the community had never adopted bylaws or held formal votes.[5]

During the period when the settlement was known as Niran, it maintained an industrial area with factories producing stretch film and other plastic materials.[3]

The modern kibbutz is associated by name with an ancient city, but the Jerusalem Post places the modern settlement several kilometers north of the ancient site.[3] A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs article separately identifies the Naaran synagogue as one of the Jewish holy sites in the Jericho Area covered by the May 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement's access provision.[8] The source does not identify the synagogue as being inside the modern kibbutz.

A January 2019 report described an incident from about a month earlier in which two Palestinians entered Na'aran and the neighboring community of Yitav during the early evening. They walked through the area until a resident noticed them and alerted security forces, but the two escaped.[9]

Na'aran lies in the West Bank, a territory whose legal status is the subject of ongoing international dispute. Some countries regard Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law, while Israel's position is that the territory is disputed rather than occupied and that settlement construction does not violate international law.[10] The 1993 Israel–PLO agreement left the final status of Israeli settlements as a matter for future negotiation between the parties.[11] The sources consulted for this article do not resolve Na'aran's specific legal status.