Aqraba in Arabic means ‘scorpion’. The town is home to an old Byzantine church, now transformed into a mosque, as well as a number of cisterns, one of which still holds water. Pieces of pottery from the second Iron Age, as well as the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Ayyubid and Mamluk eras have been found in the area.

Aqraba came under Jordanian rule in 1949 before coming under Israeli occupation in 1967, and finally came under the control of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994.

Notes

We will stop in Aqraba for lunch with a local family. In villages it is important that you are dressed modestly at all times: this means wearing loose, opaque clothing that covers the shoulders and knees. Women should carry a lightweight scarf with which they can cover themselves when entering mosques or other holy sites.