Mount Arbel

Hamaam (Arabic: حمام; Hebrew: חַמָּם), or Wadi Hamam, is an Arab village in northern Israel, located near the Sea of Galilee, at the foot of Mount Nitai and across the Wadi Hamam valley from Mount Arbel. It is the easternmost part of the al-Batuf Regional Council. In 2022 its population was 1,561.

Mount Nitai (Hebrew: הר נתאי, Har Nitai), sometimes spelled Nitay, is a mountain in Israel situated west of the Sea of Galilee and north of the city of Tiberias. Har Nitai is named after Nittai of Arbela. The cliffs of Nitai and Arbel are visible when looking southwest from Capernaum on the shore of the Sea of Galillee.In 2018, Severino Caruso, a young French man accompanying groups of pilgrims in Israel, identified Mount Nittai of Arbela as the plausible place where Christ spent a week in retreat with his apostles, far from the tumult of the world, in order to introduce them to specific teaching with a view to their future mission in the Church. His research is based on the descriptions of a Mystic work entitled: “The Gospel as it was revealed to me” by Maria Valtorta, a Catholic mystic, who, through vision and supernatural immersion, would have witnessed all the biblical events in the public life of Jesus of Nazareth, from 1943 to 1947. The descriptions of the work allowed the engineer and researcher Jean-François Lavère to authenticate many of the original places that saw Jesus pass during his public life. Severino Caruso then perceived the historical significance of this discovery, which he made in the Arbel Valley, which confirms that the visions of Maria Valtorta seem to be authentic. He published a testimonial french book on the subject in 2021 entitled: “The Arbel Valley and the election of the twelve apostles” Centro Valtortiano edition.

Migdal (Hebrew: מִגְדָּל, lit. Tower) is a town in the Northern District of Israel. It was founded in 1948, and granted local council status in 1949. In 2022 it had a population of 2,031. Migdal is located near Ginosar, and about 8 km north of Tiberias. It has a shoreline on the Sea of Galilee, including the Tamar, Ilanot and Arbel beaches.

The Migdal Synagogue or Magdala Synagogue is the name used for the first of two ancient synagogues discovered at the ancient city of Magdala in Israel, close to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Both synagogues were in use in the Second Temple period, which places them among the oldest synagogues found in Israel. Inside the synagogue first discovered at Migdal, the Magdala stone was found representing the Menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum that was located in the Second Temple. It's the oldest such representation in a Jewish context and one that appears to have been made by an individual who had seen the Menorah in the Temple.

Magdala (Aramaic: מגדלא, romanized: Magdalā, meaning "tower"; Hebrew: מגדל, romanized: Migdál; Arabic: المجدل, romanized: al-Majdal; Ancient Greek: Μαγδαλά) was an ancient Jewish city on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, 5 km (3 miles) north of Tiberias. In the Babylonian Talmud it is known as Magdala Nunayya (Aramaic: מגדלא נוניה, meaning "Tower of the Fishes"), and which some historical geographers think may refer to Tarichaea, literally: "the place of processing fish." It is believed to be the birthplace of Mary Magdalene. Until the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, a small Arab village, al-Majdal, stood at the site of ancient Magdala. The Israeli municipality of Migdal now extends into the area.

Tarichaea (Greek: Ταριχαία, Tarichaia) is the Greek place name for a historic site of disputed location. It was situated along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and mentioned in the writings of Josephus (Ant. 14.120; 20.159; The Jewish War 1.180; 2.252; Vita 32, et al.). Tarichaea was one of the first villages in Galilee to have sustained an attack by Rome, during the First Jewish-Roman War. The village (κώμη) attracted to it the seditious from the outlying regions east of Galilee, who mixed with the local townsfolk and who relied upon some 230 boats on the Sea of Galilee for protection in the event of an assault upon the village. When the village was eventually overrun by the Roman army, the population surrendered.

On November 2, 1948, two squads of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers captured an encampment of Bedouins at Khirbat al-Wa'ra al-Sawda' in the eastern Galilee. While some soldiers guarded the Arabs, others went to a nearby hilltop where the headless bodies of two Israeli soldiers were found. In retaliation, the Arabs' dwellings were destroyed and 15 or 16 adult males were shot, 14 of whom died. The victims' bodies were buried in a cave adjacent to the place where they were killed. In the 1950s, the Israeli National Water Project was dug through the cave, and the Mawassi people took the bones to another cave. During the 1980s the bones were moved to a common grave in the Muslim cemetery in Eilabun.

Khirbat al-Wa'ra al-Sawda' (Arabic: خربة الوعرة السوداء) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Tiberias Subdistrict. In 1945, the village had a population of 1,870 Arabs. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on April 18, 1948. It was located 7.5 km northeast of Tiberias. Some of the villagers fled to Syria while others migrated to the central Galilee.

Arbel (Hebrew: אַרְבֵּל) is a moshav in northern Israel. Located beside Mount Arbel next to the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias, it falls under the jurisdiction of Lower Galilee Regional Council. In 2022 its population was 756. Arbel was established in 1949 by demobilized soldiers on the lands of the depopulated Arab-Palestinian village of Hittin. It was initially a moshav shitufi, but became a moshav ovdim in 1959.

Kfar Hittim (Hebrew: כְּפַר חִטִּים) is a moshav shitufi in northern Israel. Located on a hill 3 km west of Tiberias, it falls under the jurisdiction of Lower Galilee Regional Council. It was Israel's first moshav shitufi, and can also be considered the first Tower and Stockade settlement. In 2022 it had a population of 600.

The sieges of Tiberias occurred in late 1742 and the summer of 1743 when the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Sulayman Pasha al-Azm, twice attempted and failed to eliminate the increasingly powerful, Tiberias-based multazim (tax farmer), Zahir al-Umar, and destroy his fortifications. Sulayman Pasha operated under orders from the imperial government to execute Zahir, and was militarily backed by the governors of Sidon and Tripoli, as well as the district governors of Nablus, Jerusalem, Gaza, and Bedouin levies. Zahir and his family, the Banu Zaydan, controlled and fortified several places in the Galilee, with Zahir based in Tiberias, and his brother, Sa'd al-Umar, in nearby Deir Hanna. In 1737 and 1738, Zahir had intensified his raids, incursions, and operations to areas under the jurisdiction of Damascus, prompting the imperial orders to eliminate him and his local allies. The first siege of Tiberias lasted for nearly three months, with Sulayman Pasha unable to breach the fortifications and forced to withdraw to lead the Hajj caravan to Mecca. Zahir strengthened Tiberias, while unsuccessfully lobbying the imperial government through the French merchants of Acre and the Jewish community in Tiberias, who attempted to leverage their contacts in the imperial capital, Constantinople. Shortly after his return to Damascus, Sulayman Pasha renewed the campaign in July 1743, with more troops and weapons. He attempted to reduce Deir Hanna, which supplied Tiberias with arms and provisions, but died suddenly in his camp. Zahir soon after reached a détente with Sulayman Pasha's successor, As'ad Pasha al-Azm. The next fourteen years were generally free of hostilities with Damascus, which enabled Zahir to focus on occupying the port of Acre in the 1740s.

Ghuwayr Abu Shusha was a Palestinian Arab village in the Tiberias Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on April 21, 1948. It was located 8 km north of Tiberias, nearby Wadi Rubadiyya.