Kever Shmuel ha-Navi), commonly known as Nebi Samuel or Nebi Samwil, is the traditional burial site of the biblical prophet Samuel, atop a steep hill at an elevation of 908 m (2,979 ft) above sea level, in the Palestinian village of Nabi Samwil, in the West Bank.

[2] The purported tomb itself is in an underground chamber which has been repurposed after 1967 as a synagogue, today with separate prayer areas for Jewish men and women.

Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank after the Six-Day War, the site is managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

[5] On the southeastern slope is a 4-acre (16,000 m2) urban settlement dating back to the 8th-7th centuries BCE, and remnants that Magen believed to be the Mizpah in Benjamin of the Book of Samuel.

[7] Magen's own conclusions have been criticised for stretching the evidence beyond the obvious implications, which he himself hints at: We did not find any remains from the time of the Judges ... not a single structure or even a standing wall from this period.

On this basis, it might be tempting to conclude that the site was unoccupied at this time ...[8]However, if Mizpah in Benjamin was Tell en-Nasbeh on the Nablus Road, Ishmael who had assassinated Gedaliah would not have fled to Ammon via Gibeon[9] which is located to the west near Nabi Samwil which overlooks Jerusalem.

[2] Jews had begun efforts to found a village at the site in 1890, originally called Ramah after the biblical home of Samuel, and then referred to by the name of the group which had purchased the lands, Nahalat Yisrael.

Over the next five years various attempts to actualise the plan had failed due to bureaucratic obstacles, but in 1895, 13 Yemenite Jewish families joined the group and succeeded in the endeavour, even engaging in agriculture there.

[citation needed] Nachalat Yisrael - Rama was an association founded in 1886 for the purpose of establishing a Jewish settlement close to the traditional tomb of Samuel.

[19] The residents, Yemenite and Ashkenazi Jews, received arms for self-protection, and large plots of additional land were bought by the association in the area.

[19] Nebi Samuel's strategic location made it the site of battles during the British conquest of Ottoman Palestine in 1917, and the village was badly damaged from artillery fire and abandoned.