Atlit (modern town)

Atlit (עַתְלִית, عتليت) is a coastal town located south of Haifa, Israel. The community is in the Hof HaCarmel Regional Council in the Haifa District of Israel. Off the coast of Atlit is a submerged Neolithic village. The town of Atlit is named after the nearby Crusader outpost and fortified town of Atlit, also known as Château Pèlerin, which although in ruins remained populated until 1948. The town was established in 1903 under the auspices of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, approximately two kilometers south of the historical site which was then a small Palestinian village. The Atlit detainee camp is nearby, which was used by the British to intern Jewish refugees and is now a museum. From 1950 until the unification of the municipalities in 2003, Atlit was a local council whose jurisdiction was 14,000 dunams. In the population was . Atlit Yam Atlit Yam is an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit. Atlit-Yam provides the earliest known evidence for an agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system on the Levantine coast. Atlit shows evidence of human habitation since the early Bronze Age. Château Pèlerin The Crusaders built the historical settlement of Atlit, also known as Château Pèlerin. It was the one of the largest citadels in the Holy Land, and became the last remaining Crusader outpost (see also: Fall of Ruad), remaining in Crusader's hands until 1291. The ruins of the citadel are still visible in modern times. Immediately to the north also lies a large medieval Christian cemetery hosting the graves of men, women and children who lived in the surrounding during the 13th century. In 1903, Jewish settlers began to built a nearby village approximately 2 km south of the ancient site which they also called Atlit. The village was established by Edmond James de Rothschild, with most of the land bought from Arab fishermen. A hundred families settled there but much of it was swampland, and many residents succumbed to malaria. Aaron Aaronsohn established an agricultural station in Atlit in 1911, and during World War I the village was used as a base by the Nili organisation.