Ni'lin is about 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) east of the 1949 Armistice Line (Green Line) bordered by Deir Qaddis, the Israeli settlements of Nili and Na'ale to the northeast, the village of al-Midya and Modi'in Illit (Kiryat Sefer) settlement bloc are to the south, Budrus (4 km) and Qibya (5 km) villages are located to the northwest.

[2] Situated 262 meters (860 feet) above sea level, Ni'lin has mild winters and hot, dry summers with temperatures averaging 32 °C (88 °F) during the day.

[7] A person named Isaac de Naelein is mentioned in a Crusader text of the year 1167 in relation to nearby Casale St. Maria (Aboud).

[13][14] In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Ni'lin (called N'alin) as a "large village on high ground, surrounded by olives, and supplied by cisterns.

[26] During 2008 and 2009, the residents of Ni'lin and international activists staged weekly demonstrations against a nearby expansion of the Israeli West Bank barrier.

The permanent stationing of a Border Police force, ordered by OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Shamni, on the outskirts of the village where the daily demonstrations are held, infuriated marchers in the funeral procession.

[35] Yousef Ahmed Younis Amera (18) was declared brain-dead in a Ramallah hospital on Wednesday 30 July 2008 after being shot in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet and finally died on Monday 4 August 2008.

[36][37] On 5 August 2008, Israeli police said that they had detained a border policeman and placed him under house arrest in connection with the death of Ahmed Moussa.

[38] In the second week of August 2008, twenty-two unarmed civilians (including eight children) were shot with metal-coated rubber bullets at protests in Ni'lin and Bil'in villages (Ramallah).

[41] The regular clashes here came more sharply into the international spotlight when a 38-year-old U.S. citizen named Tristan Anderson, of Oakland, California was struck in the head by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli forces on 13 March 2009, during demonstrations against the barrier.

[45] In March 2010, the Israeli army designated Ni'lin, (together with nearby village Bil'in), as a "closed military area" each Friday.

[49] Accused by the army of "severe moral failure", the Battalion commander is to be reassigned to another post and will face the relatively minor charge of "unworthy conduct".

Israeli human rights groups B'Tselem, Yesh Din, the Association for Civil Rights, and the Public Committee Against Torture have criticized the Israeli army's disciplining of Borberg as lenient and have asked the Israeli military Judge Advocate General to suspend legal proceedings against both the lieutenant colonel involved and Staff Sergeant "L" who fired the shot to enable a challenge to be mounted against the decision to charge the two with the relatively light offense of "inappropriate conduct".

[50][51] The Ha'aretz editorial comments that: The opportunity to send a message of total intolerance of shooting a person in shackles has been missed.