Nablus The city of Nablus lies in a narrow gorge less than a kilometre wide between Mount Jarzim (880 m) and its counterpart, Mount Ebal (940 m). The road trough the plain from Ramallah to Nablus crosses the industrial zone and Balata refugee camp before starting up the gorge, which runs from east to west. The Old City of Nablus (Shechem) first grew up around a spring under what's now the Balata refugee camp. Shechem was destroied in the second century BC by Jhon Hyrcanus' army. In the 70 AD, roman emperor Titus totally annihilated the ancient city and built the settlement of Flavia Neapolis (the latin neapolis - "new city"- having also baptised the city Naples, similar to Nablus in its transliteration) at the foot of Mount Jarzim, in honour of his father emperor Flavius Vespasian, whom he succeeded in 79 AD. Flavia Neapolis progressively acquired characteristics typical of a roman city: a forum, amphitheatre, hippodrome and paved streets with colonnades; it was later surrounded by a wall. Greco-roman religious cults developed in the region, but not without opposition from the Samaritans, who were among the principal victims of the roman occupation. The subsequent growth of christianity and its official recognition in the 4th century dealt a fatal blow to the samaritan community. In 636, Nablus was conquered by arab troups and went to a rapid process of islamization and arabization. Christian places of worship, often estabilished on the same site as older samaritan or roman temples, were in turn trasformed into mosques or mulsim shrines. Nablus devoloped on the model of Damascus, the Umayyad capital, to such an extent that the arab geographer al-Muqaddassi (tenth century), nicknamed it "The Little Damascus", a title of which it is proud to this day. In the eleventh century, Nablus became the seat of a power struggle between the Abbasids and Fatimids. This crisis left the field open for the crusader conquest. Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, mother of Baldwin III, retained Nablus after her regency indeed and lied here from 1152 to 1161. Saladin recaptured the city in 1187. In the following century, the city experienced a number of calamities: an earthquke in 1202, the mongolian invasion in 1260 and Bedouin plundering in 1280, before retrieving prosperity again during the Mamaluche period. Its production of soap, cotton cloth and pastries acquired a reputation in th entire arab world. At the end of the nieneteenth century, Nablus became the political arena for the Arab National Movement as it confrontend three challanges: the Turkish National Movement between 1909 and 1914, Zionist immigration and British colonialism. During the Palestinian National Movements' revolt (1936), Nablus was even the first city to create a Palestinian National Committee. Its avant-garde position against colonialism and occupation earned it the name Jabal en-Nar (the Mountain of Fire). In spring 1936, the liberation movements of Palestine even declared, in Nablus, the "Republic of Palestine". It goes without saying that this prompted tighter control of the city by the Giordanian autorities of King Hussein. Subsequent Israeli occupation brought new forms of repression. Many palestinian political leaders were victims of assassination attemps. In 1980, Bassam Shaka'a, mayor-elect of Nablus survived the explosion of his booby-trapped car. His two legs were blown off. Having survived the attack, he was dismissed from his positon by the Israeli authorities and placed under house arrest. In 1995, Nablus became an autonomous Palestinian city (area A), but totally surrounded by Jewish settlements. The economic situation of the city where there are many smalls manufacturers (furniture and construction materials, among others) is paralysed by Israeli restrictions on exports and depends on Israeli market. Named the "Mountain of Fire" by Palestinians in allusion to its strong resistance, the Israeli authorities have given it the name of "capital of terrorism" since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and have been merciless in their siege of the city, which has been repeatedly bombarded since the beginning of this intifada. After the Israeli army entered the center of the city in April 2002, the population - already besieged by seven checkpoints around it - was subjeced to a more or less permanent curfew from July until mid-October. At that time curfew was lifted for 79 hours, or just over three days. [da "Palestine & Palestinian Guidebook" - AIG English Edition - Ramallah, April 2005]