Ottoman era

Salfit was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and sherds from the early Ottoman era have been found.^[6] In 1596 the village appeared in Ottoman tax registers under the name of Salfit al-Basal as being in the Nahiya ("Subdistrict") of Jabal Qubal, part of the Sanjak of Nablus. It had a population of 118 households and 2 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on various agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, goats and/or beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 7,618 akçe.^[8]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Salfit formed part of the highland region known as Jūrat ‘Amra or Bilād Jammā‘īn. Situated between Dayr Ghassāna in the south and the present Route 5 in the north, and between Majdal Yābā in the west and Jammā‘īn, Mardā and Kifl Ḥāris in the east, this area served, according to historian Roy Marom, "as a buffer zone between the political-economic-social units of the Jerusalem and the Nablus regions. On the political level, it suffered from instability due to the migration of the Bedouin tribes and the constant competition among local clans for the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Ottoman authorities.”^[9]

In 1838, it was noted as a Muslim village, Selfit, in Jurat Merda, south of Nablus.^[10]

During the Ottoman era, it served as a hub for the local villages,^[11] and was one of many large commercial villages in the area that served a mediating role between the administrative center of Nablus and the smaller villages.^[12]

In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya (sub-district) of Jamma'in al-Thani, subordinate to Nablus.^[13]

In 1882 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine, Salfit was described as "a large village, on high ground, with olive groves round it, and a pool to the east. It is apparently an ancient site with rock-cut tombs." It further noted that there were two springs to the west of the village.^[14]

By 1916, towards the end of Ottoman rule in Palestine, Salfit was one of the two largest villages in the District of Nablus that produced olive oil. At the time there were tensions between the residents of the village and the merchants of the administrative center of Nablus.^[15] The boys' school had about 100 pupils while the girls' school had 10 pupils. One of the reasons for the disparity was the locust attack on Salfit's crop earlier the previous year which had destroyed the village's harvest. Because of the consequent poverty and state of demise, parents kept their daughters at home to care for the family.^[16]

British mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Salfit had a population of 901; 899 Muslims^[17] and 2 Orthodox Christians,^[18] increasing in the 1931 census, to 1,415; 1,412 Muslims and 3 Christians, occupying 331 homes.^[19]

In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,830, all Muslims,^[20] while the total land area was 23,117 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.^[21] Of this, 10,853 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 3,545 for cereals,^[22] while 100 dunams were classified as built-up areas.^[23]

Jordanian era

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Salfit came under Jordanian rule.

In 1948 Salfit was the center of the Palestine Communist Party.^[24] Throughout the 1950s it became a major stronghold for the communist movement and center of anti-Jordanian activity.^[25] Salfit was given municipality status in 1955.^[5]

In 1961, the population of Salfit was 3,393 persons.^[26]

1967-present

Salfit has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Six-Day War.

By 1989 Salfit was still a communist stronghold. Between the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 following the Six-Day War and the First Intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began in 1987, a relatively large number of the town's residents, about 600 out of a population of 4,500, worked labor jobs in Israel proper and in the adjacent Israeli settlement of Ariel. In Salfit there was a higher proportion of laborers who worked in Israeli establishments, compared to other Palestinian towns, because of the proximity to nearby settlements and the border with Israel as well as the significantly higher wages earned.^[27]

However, at the beginning of the First Intifada, nearly all workers boycotted their jobs in Israel and the following year, when many Palestinians ended their boycott, around half of the workers of Salfit refused to return to their jobs. Consequently, according to historian Glenn E. Robinson, between 1987–1989, a "virtual green revolution" took hold in the town as a result of the enthusiasm generated by the "back-to-the-land movement," agricultural expertise and the increase in additional workers. While prior to the uprising Salfit's residents acquired the bulk of their produce from the Nablus region and Israel, during the revolt the town became self-sufficient in both tomatoes, which were not grown at all previously, and cucumbers. Other agricultural products such as potatoes, eggplants, peppers, cauliflower and beans were grown in greenhouses while those that were not grown were supplied by other Palestinian farmers. Unlike in previous years, Salfit had supplied Nablus with vegetables while that city was under Israeli curfew. Part of this upsurge in agricultural activity was the cultivation of about 100 dunams of relatively isolated lands.^[27] In response to Salfit's agricultural initiative, Israel halved the town's water supply in 1989.^{[citation needed]}

As a result of an Israeli military measure that closed all schools in the West Bank on 3 February 1988 for the stated purpose that they served to organize violence, a number of "popular education committees" were established. These committees held classes in lieu of the closed-down schools. Families affiliated with the conservative Hamas movement sent their children to the mosque-based class while those leaned towards communism and secularism sent their children to a local union building. Classes held in the mosque were considered to particularly progressive because of gender integration.^[28]

Between the 1960s and the late 1980s, Salfit's urban growth had mostly occurred eastward from the old town. The old town still served as a nucleus of activity in Salfit and the stone villas of the Zir and 'Afana clans still remain.^[11]

In 1993, the military wing of Hamas claimed it launched its first suicide operation in Salfit.^[29] In 1995 the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which now administered the town, created the district of Salfit gained the status of governorate.^[5] Under the Oslo Accords, the city has been placed under Palestinian civil control, what is known as Area A.

In 2021 the Israeli authorities published plans to construct 730 residential units around the illegal Israeli outpost of Nof Avi, which was established in 2020 by an Israeli couple as a farm, on what Israel declares is 'state land'. The new settlement was to be called 'West Ariel'. The establishment of such a large settlement, according to Salfit residents, would effectively block their own planned urban expansion.^[30]

Water treatment plant

There are a large number of water springs in and around the city but they unable to cope with the growing demand of the city. For the past nine years, the municipality has been trying to build a waste-water treatment plant to service the residents of Salfit town.^[42] In July 2007, the House of Water and Environment (HWE) of Ramallah produced a report the “Assessment of the Impact of Pollution Sources on the Water Environment and the Lives of the Residents in the Northern West Bank, Palestine”.^[43]

The plant was supposed to be built on Salfit Governorate land 13 kilometers (8.1 mi) from the town of Salfit. The municipality received a grant of 22 million euros from the German government to build the plant and a mainline pipe to the town but the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) stopped the construction of the building and seized all the equipment because it allegedly would interfere with the nearby Israeli settlements.^[44] The equipment was returned only 18 months later. As a result, the town had to take out a loan to buy a new piece of land eight kilometers closer to its outskirts and another loan of 2 million euros to move the pipes and the electricity cables. Although Israel approved the new site of the plant, the planned West Bank Barrier will now separate Salfit from the sewage plant.^[44]

In May 2006, international human rights organizations were called to witness sewage of Ariel settlement running into the agriculture valleys north of the city and damaging the surrounding agriculture and environment.^[45]

In June, 2016, Salfit and other towns in the area had to go without running water for weeks, as the Israeli Mekorot reduced the amount of water it sold to the Palestinians.^[46]