Palm Island – Rabbit Island
Palm Island takes its name from two large palm trees that once stood on it. Its other familiar name, Rabbit Island, comes from rabbits introduced by a French consul for hunting in the early twentieth century, around the French Mandate period. They multiplied and became a distinctive feature of the island.
Covering approximately 20 hectares, the island has broad sandy beaches along its northern and eastern sides. Its clear coastal waters and beaches helped make it a destination for Lebanese visitors and tourists interested in swimming and water sports, particularly as pollution increasingly affected parts of the mainland coast.
The island also preserves traces of earlier occupation. These include ruins thought to belong to a Crusader church, a freshwater well associated with the same period and the remains of open basins once used to produce salt.
