A possibility, they noted, was that Jaba' was the "Gabe", mentioned by the Byzantine historian Jerome, that was located 16 Roman miles from the coastal city of Caesarea.

[7][8] Zertal found that his survey "support the traditional identification of Jaba with Geba' (gb') of the Samaria Ostraca (no.

In the 1596 Ottoman tax records, it appeared under the name of Jab'a, located in the Jabal Sami Nahiya, in the Nablus Sanjak.

It had a population of 42 families, all Muslim, who paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a press for olives or grapes; a total of 15,304 akçe.

[13] In 1851, Jaba's inhabitants issued a complaint to Hafiz Pasha, the governor of Jerusalem, accusing the Jarrar sheikhs of the village of forcing them to sign promissory notes about selling their future olive oil (a total of 2,600 jars within two years) to the sheikhs at a reduced price.

The case was transferred to the Nablus Advisory Council headed by Mahmud Abd al-Hadi, who concluded that the residents' claims about the sheikhs were false and that the promissory notes were meant to make up for the resident's failure to pay taxes due to a bad olive harvest.

The camp was established on the west on open arable ground, close to one well which has a Shaduf, or long pole with a weight for drawing up water.

[17] During the 1936–1939 Palestine revolt, Jaba' was home to Fawzi Jarrar, a leading rebel commander in the Jenin area.

The nearest localities are Fandaqumiya and Silat ad-Dhahr to the west, Rama and Ajjah to the northwest, Anzah to the north, Sanur and Meithalun to the northeast, Siris to the east, Yasid to the southeast, Beit Imrin to the south and Burqa to the southwest.

The entrance on the north-east leads to an ante-chamber with two coats of plaster on the walls ; the inner chamber has three kokim; the door between is a rude arch of small masonry.

Between the Neby Yarub tomb and the 19th-century building are scattered remains and potsherds from the Byzantine, early Islamic, Mamluk and Ottoman eras.

[31] The site was counted in the 1596 Ottoman tax records as a Muslim village named "Beit Yarub" with a population of eight families and three bachelors.

[33] The village is mentioned again in a 1671 Ottoman tax record and later as a mid-19th-century estate of Emir Bashir Shihab II of Mount Lebanon.

[27][34] It has a total area of 15 dunams and is situated on a ridge descending north from Mount Hureish and towards Jaba's valley with an elevation of 410 meters above sea level.

Pottery sherds indicate Khirbet Jafa was an inhabited site during the Iron Age II, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, early Islamic and medieval periods.

[34] Khirbet al-Naqb is located southeast of Jaba', and has few intact remains, consisting of scattered building stones.

[3] Some residents of Jaba' have origins in Hebron or Egypt, while others descend from immigrants from the nearby northern villages or in Transjordan.