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ARBELA

Site of a great slaughter when General Bacchides invaded Judea from Syria (1 Macc 9:1-2). The site has not been positively identified, although the historian Josephus called it a city of Galilee and noted that the caves of Arbela in lower Galilee were fortified against marauding robbers. Possible identifications include Beth-arbel in Gilead and the Galilean Khirbet Irbid overlooking the wadi el-Hamam, west of the Sea of Galilee.