Deir Siryan or Deir Seryan () is a municipality in the Marjayoun District in Southern Lebanon. By April 2026 it had largely been destroyed by Israeli demolition teams in the 2026 Lebanon War.
Etymology According to E. H. Palmer, the name Deir es Suriân means "the convent of the Syrian".Palmer, 1881, p. 20
History In 1596, it was named as a village, Dayr Siryan, in the Ottoman nahiya (subdistrict) of Tibnin under the liwa' (district) of Safad, with a population of 10 households and 1 bachelor, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, olive trees, goats, beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues" and a press for olive oil or grape syrup; a total of 2,952 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 182Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
In the early 1860s, Ernest Renan found here remains of old buildings and a cistern.Renan, 1864, p. 646 In 1875, Victor Guérin found that the village had Metawileh inhabitants,Guérin, 1880, p. 275 and noted: "Cisterns and tanks partly cut in the rock and partly built. Hewn stones show that here was an ancient village or edifice."Guérin, 1880, p. 275; as given in Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 115
In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as "a village, built of stone, containing about 200 Metawileh, situated on the plain and surrounded by small gardens and arable land. Water from wells and a spring."Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 87
2026 Lebanon War In March 2026, the village was targeted by the Israel Defense Forces during clashes with Hezbollah and destruction of their weaponry and infrastructure during the 2026 Lebanon War.Segal, Amit
The villagers had mostly fled or were expelled when Deir Siryan was destroyed by Israeli demolition experts in April 2026 through a series of controlled explosions. The purpose of these actions was to establish a so-called "security zone" along the border by preventing enemy fighters from using buildings in the area for their operations. Other border villages in Lebanon who were reported to have been largely destroyed by IDF sappers were neighboring Taybeh and An-Naqoura.William Christou, Abbas Abdel Karim, Lucy Swan: "‘Everything is gone’: Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon" The Guardian, 12 April 2026
Demographics In 2014 Muslims made up 99.84% of registered voters in Deir Siryan. 98.77% of the voters were Shiite Muslims.https://lub-anan.com/المحافظات/النبطية/مرجعيون/دير-سريان/المذاهب/
References
Bibliography
External links Deir Siriane (archive.org), Localiban Survey of Western Palestine, Map 2: IAA, Wikimedia commons