Dayr al-Hawa

Dayr al-Hawa (Arabic: دير الهوا‎) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jerusalem Subdistrict. The village was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on October 19, 1948 by the Fourth Battalion of the Har'el Brigade of Operation ha-Har. It was located 18.5 km west of Jerusalem.

Dayr al-Hawa

دير الهوا
Etymology: The Monastery of the Wind[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Dayr al-Hawa (click the buttons)
Dayr al-Hawa
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 31°45′05″N 35°02′14″E
Palestine grid153/128
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictJerusalem
Date of depopulationOctober 19–20, 1948[2]
Area
 • Total5,907 dunams (5.907 km2 or 2.281 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total60[3][4][5]
Cause(s) of depopulationMilitary assault by Yishuv forces

History

Coins and ceramics from the Byzantine era have been found here.[6]

Ottoman era

In 1838, Edward Robinson called it a "lofty" village, on the brink of a valley.[7] It was further noted as a Muslim village, located in the District of el-Arkub, southwest of Jerusalem.[8] In 1856 the village was named D. el Hawa on the map of Southern Palestine that Heinrich Kiepert published that year.[9]

Victor Guérin, visiting the village in 1863, wrote that Dayr al-Hawa "probably owes its name, monastery of the wind, to its high position".[10]

An Ottoman village list from around 1870 showed that Der el-Hawa had 32 houses and a population of 103, though the population count included men, only.[11][12]

In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described it as "a village standing high, on a knoll rising from a high ridge, with a deep valley to the north. It has several high houses in it. On the west is a good spring. The ground is covered with brushwood all round the place."[13]

In 1896 the population of Der el-hawa was estimated to be about 162 persons.[14]

British Mandate era
Dayr el-Hawa 1948

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted i by the British Mandate authorities, Dair al-Hawa had a population of 38 residents; all Muslims,[15] increasing in the 1931 census to 47 inhabitants, in 11 houses.[16]

In the 1945 statistics the village had a population of 60 Muslims,[4] with a total of 5,907 dunums of land.[5] Of this, 58 dunams were for irrigable land or plantations, 1,565 for cereals,[17] while 4 dunams were built-up land.[18]

A mosque was located in the western part of the village and there was a shrine for a local sage known as al-Shaykh Sulayman. Near the ruins of the old village now stands the Israeli moshav, Nes Harim,[19] however, it is not on village land. (It is on the land of Bayt 'Itab.)[20]

During the 1948 it was defended by the local militia and the Egyptian Army/Muslim Brotherhood Battalion.

  • Dayr al-Hawa, Mandate survey, 1:20,000
  • Dayr al-Hawa, 1945, 1:20,000

See also

References
  1. Palmer, 1881, p.293
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xx, village #339. Also gives cause of depopulation.
  3. Khalidi, 1992, p. 285
  4. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 24
  5. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 56
  6. Dauphin, 1998, p. 908
  7. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 2, pp. 326, 340, 342, 426
  8. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 125
  9. Kiepert, 1856, Map of Southern Palestine
  10. Guerin, 1869, p. 321
  11. Socin, 1879, p. 152 It was noted in the Hebron district
  12. Hartmann, 1883, p. 145 also showed 32 houses
  13. Conder and Kitchener, 1883, p. 24
  14. Schick, 1896, p. 125
  15. Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p. 21
  16. Mills, 1932, p. 19
  17. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 102
  18. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 152
  19. Zvi Dror, Har'el: Palmach brigade in Jerusalem, Ha-kibbutz ha-meuchad 2005, p. 269 (Hebrew)
  20. Khalidi, 1992, p. 286

Bibliography
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