Roudy -
I'd be happy to. Here are a few exceprts from a history of Jericho, and remember we know from genetic testing that the people in Jericho today are very closely related to the people who lived in Jericho back at least 3,000 years, and probably back to 9000 BCE.
Jericho is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with evidence of settlement dating back to 9000 BCE. During the Younger Dryas period of cold and drought, permanent habitation of any one location was not possible. However, the spring at what would become Jericho was a popular camping ground for Natufian hunter-gatherer groups, who left a scattering of crescent microlith tools behind them.
Jericho, by then named "Ariha" in Arabic variation, fell under the Bilad al-Sham in district (jund) "al-Filastin".
By 659 that district had come under the control of Mu'awiya, founder of the Umayyads as a dynasty. That year, an earthquake struck Jericho and destroyed nearly all of it. A decade later the pilgrim Arculf visited Jericho and found it a ruin, all its "miserable Canaanite" inhabitants now dispersed in shantytowns around the Dead Sea shore.
The tenth caliph of that dynasty, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, built a palatial complex known as Khirbet al-Mafjar about one mile north of Tell as-Sultan in 743, and two mosques, a courtyard, mosaics, and other items from it can still be seen in situ today, despite its having been partially destroyed in an earthquake in 747.
Umayyad rule ended in 750 and was followed by the Arab caliphates of the Abbasid and Fatimid dynasties. Irrigated agriculture was developed under Islamic rule, reaffirming Jericho's reputation as a fertile "City of the Palms". Al-Maqdisi, the Arab geographer, wrote in 985 that, "the water of Jericho is held to be the highest and best in all Islam. Bananas are plentiful, also dates and flowers of fragrant odor."Jericho is also referred to by him as one of the principal cities of Jund Filastin.
The city flourished until 1071 and the invasion of the Seljuk Turks, followed by the upheavals of the Crusades.
Jericho - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And so on and so on...through until 2012.
The population has risen and fallen, invaders have come and gone, but the city has existed since 9000BCE, and the genetic code of the people within it has remained more or less intact.
Jews have also lived in Jericho for much of this time since at least 2,700 years back (as noted in the link), so their rights are also crucial here, but for most of that history, they made up only 5% - 10% of the population.
