Deir Ballut () is a Palestinian town located in the Salfit Governorate in the northern West Bank, south west of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of 3,195 in 2007. Location Deir Ballut is located west of Salfit. It is bordered by Kafr ad Dik to its east, Al Lubban al Gharbi to the south, Kafr Qasem to the west, and Rafat to the north. History Sherds from the Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad/Abbasid and Crusader/Ayyubid eras have been found here. The "great valley" of Wadi Deir Ballut was identified by Charles William Wilson (1836–1905) as the boundary between Judaea and Samaria, as defined by first-century historian Josephus. Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi records in 1226 that "Deir al-Ballut was a village of district around ar-Ramla." Ottoman era In 1838, it was noted as a Muslim village, Deir Balut, in Jurat Merda, south of Nablus. In 1870 Victor Guérin found it to be a village of one hundred and fifty people. However, judging by the extent of the ruins that covered the hill where it stood, Guérin thought it had once been a large city. Most houses were built with large stones. In 1882 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as "a small village, partly ruinous, but evidently once a place of greater importance, with rock-cut tombs. The huts are principally of stone. The water supply is from wells." To the west of the village are rock-tombs, from a Christian age. WWI and British Mandate era During World War I, Deir Ballut was the site of a minor engagement between Turkish and British troops on March 12, 1918. In the 1922 census of Palestine Deir Ballut had a population of 384 inhabitants, all Muslim, rising to 532 in the 1931 census, still all Muslim, in a total of 91 houses. In the 1945 statistics the population was 720, all Muslim while the total land area was 14,789 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 508 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 3,488 for cereals, while 63 dunams were classified as built-up (urban) areas. Jordanian era In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Deir Ballut came under Jordanian rule. In 1961, the population was 1,087. Post-1967 Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Deir Ballut has been under Israeli occupation. After