Rachaya al Wadi - Lebanon [4K] | راشيا الوادي - لبنان

Rachaya al Wadi by drone, showing the beautiful Rachaya town and the Rachaya citadel along with its churches and more.

Rachaya, also known as Rashaya al-Wadi is a town of the Rashaya District in the south of the Beqaa Governorate of Lebanon.
It is situated at around 1,350 metres (4,430 ft) above sea level on the western slopes of Mount Hermon, south east of Beirut near the Syrian border, and approximately halfway between Jezzine and Damascus.

Rashaya has a population of around 6,000 to 7,500 that are mostly Druze, other are Christians. It is still considered to be a traditional Lebanese town with its old cobbled streets and small shops, even though it witnessed in recent years a slight expansion of buildings.
It retains a distinguished character of traditional stone houses with red tiled roofs.

The small souk in the middle of the town offers various shops selling local crafts and inexpensive goods. There is a recently renovated goldsmiths selling an assortment of gold and silver jewelry in Byzantine and other styles.

The nearby Faqaa forest is classified as a protected area and Pine nuts from the local conifer trees are used in traditional cooking.

Rashaya has four churches and a dozen of Druze khalwaat. There is a Greek Catholic Church and a Syriac Catholic Church along with the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

There have been findings of Paleolithic and Heavy Neolithic stone age tools near the town of Qaraoun along with Trihedral Neolithic material recovered nearby at Joub Jannine, both in the Western Bekaa province.
The remains of a Roman temple can be seen on the left side of the road leading from Rashaya to the village of Aaiha, one of several Temples of Mount Hermon.Neolithic flints were also found in the hills 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) north of the town.
There is also a significant Neolithic site nearby at Kawkaba where fragments of agricultural tools such as basalt hoes have been found with very faded dating suggesting the 6th millennium or earlier.

The Citadel:
The Rashaya Citadel, also known as the Citadel of Independence, has been declared a national monument,having been first built as a palace by the Shihab family in the 18th century.It is now stationed by the Lebanese Armed Forces and can be visited and seen under the army's surveillance.

In June 1860, the town was the scene of a massacre, where two hundred and sixty five Christians were killed by Druze forces, some within the citadel.Around one thousand victims were killed in the areas of Hasbaya and Rashaya between 10 and 13 June.

In November and December 1925, the town was engulfed and nearly obliterated by one of the largest battles of the Great Druze Revolt, when four hundred and twenty nine Christian homes were either damaged or destroyed. Three thousand Druze under Zayd Beg besieged the citadel of French legionnaires under a Captain Granger between 20 and 24 November
The Druze eventually suffered their first major defeat to French reinforcements, with heavy casualties marking a turning point in the Druze invasion of southern Lebanon.

Under the French Mandate and on 11 November 1943, Rashaya witnessed the arrest and the imprisonment of the Lebanese national leaders in its citadel by the Free French troops
(Bechara El Khoury (the first post-independence President of Lebanon), Riad El-Solh (the Prime Minister), Pierre Gemayel, Camille Chamoun, Adel Osseiran). This led to a national and international pressure in demand for their release, and eventually obliging France to obey.
On November 22, 1943, the prisoners were released, and that day was declared the Lebanese Independence Day.

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