List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict

Below is a list of villages depopulated or destroyed during the Arab–Israeli conflict.

1880–1946

Arab villages

A number of these villages, those in the Jezreel Valley, were inhabited by tenants of land which was sold by a variety of owners, some local and others absentee landlord families, such as the Karkabi, Tueini, Farah and Khuri families and Sursock family of Lebanon. In some cases land was sold directly by local fellahim (peasant owners).[1] The sale of land to Jewish organizations meant that tenant farmers were displaced.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

List of Palestinian villages from which tenant farmers were uprooted before 1948, with the cause of the uprooting (i.e., sale by landlord or some other cause) given along with the name of Jewish settlements on newly acquired land (in parentheses) can be seen below.

Safed district al-Mutila, 1896 (Metula) Land, 12,800 dunams, sold under Ottoman law by landlord, a Christian from Sidon named Jabur Bey, to Baron de Rothschild's chief officer Joshua Ossovetski. Druze villagers displaced.[8][9] Difna, 1939 (Dafna) al-Manara, unknown date (Manara) 2538 dunams of land purchased by the Jewish National Fund from the landlord, Asa'ad Bey Khuri of Beirut.[10] Najmat as-Subah, unknown date (Ayelet HaShahar) Acre district Ja'atoun, unknown date (Ga'aton) Khirbat Jiddin, 1946, other sources says 1948 (Yehiam) Tiberias district Um al-Junah, unknown date (Degania Bet)[11] Malhamiyah, 1902 According to Edward Said, the Jewish farming village of Menahemia) was established in 1902 on land purchased by the Jewish Colonization Association in 1901; 3,000 dunams were purchased directly from local fellahim, 700 dunhams from local landlords, and over 60,000 dunams from landlords in Beirut; the Sursuq, Tuenis, and Mudawwar families. The Arab tenant farmers were evicted by Ottoman authorities.[1] Sha’arah, beginning of the 20th century (Omer Sha’ara, today Shadmot Dvora) Sarona, 1910 (Sharona) Sarjuna, unknown date (Shorshim, today HaZor'im) Yammah, 1901 (Yavniel)[11] Nazareth district Jabata, 1926 (Gvat)[12] Khunaifis, 1926 (Sarid)[12] Ganigar, Jinjar, Jenjar, Junjar, 1922, Ginegar,[13] Rab an-Nasrah, unknown date (Mazra) Tal al-’Adas, unknown date (Tel Adashim)[14] al-'Afoulah, 1925 (Afula) al-Foulah, 1910 (Merhavia) Mashah, 1902 (Kfar Tavor)[11] Samouniyah, unknown date (Shimron nature reserve, Timrat)[15] Umm Kubei, unknown date[16] Beisan district Khirbat Bayt Ilfa, unknown date (Beit Alpha) Shatah, unknown date (Beit HaShita) Tall al-Fir, 1922 (none) Jaloud, 1922 (Ein Harod) Zarra'a, Jewish National Fund bought the land in the 1930s, Tirat Tzvi established on the site in 1938[17] Jisr Majami[18][19] Haifa district Jadroun, 1925 (Kfar Bialik) Kurdani, unknown date (Afek)[20] Kafr Ata, 1925 (Kfar Ata – today Kiryat Ata) al-Majdal, 1925 (none) al-Harbaj, 1924 (Kfar Hasidim)[21] al-Harithiyah, 1924 (Sha'ar HaAmakim)[21] Tab’oun, unknown date (Tivon, today Kiryat Tivon)[21] Qusqous, unknown date (Alonim)[21] Jida, 1925 (Ramat Yishai)[22][23] Tal ash-Shamam, 1925 (Kfar Yehoshua)[12] Qamoun, 1925 (Yokneam) Ja’ara, unknown date (Ein HaShofet)[24][25] Um ad-Dafouf, unknown date (Dalia)[26][27] Um at-Tout, unknown date (none) Shifiyah, unknown date (Meir Shfeya)[28] Zamarin, unknown date (Zichron Yaacov) Um al-’Alaq, unknown date, (Ramat HaNadiv)[29] ash-Shounah, unknown date (none), maybe identical to Khirbat al-Shuna destroyed in 1948 Zarghaniyah, unknown date (Binyamina) al-Buraij, unknown date (Binyamina) Natalah, unknown date (No data) Nazlah, unknown date (none) Safsaf, unknown date (none) Hadidun, unknown date (none) Karkour, unknown date (Ein Shemer, Gan HaShomron, Karkur, Tel Shalom) Bidous, unknown date (Maanit) Shaikh Hilw, unknown date (Nahliel, now part from Hadera) Zardarah, unknown date (Gan Shmuel) Baika, unknown date (Hadera) al-Marah, 1903 (Givat Ada) ’Aabiyah, 1929 (Pardes Hanna) Sheikh Bureik Sold during the early 1920s, by the Sursuk family to the Jewish National Fund.[30] The Arab tenants were evicted and in 1925 an agricultural settlement also named Sheikh Abreik was established there by the Hapoel HaMizrachi, a Zionist political party.[31] Tulkarm district Shaikh Muhammad, unknown date (Elyashiv) Jerusalem district Beit Jimal Ramla district Kafr Wariyah, unknown date (Kfar Uria)[32] Jindas[16] (Ginaton)

1929 Palestine riots

During the 1929 Palestine riots:

Bat Yam Be'er Tuvia Giv'on HaHadashah Hartuv[33]

Kfar Uria Kiryat Ata Motza Ramat Rachel Hebron

1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine

During the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine:

• Kfar Shiloah
• Silwan Jewish population removed by the Kehillah Welfare Bureau and later the British authorities during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine[34][35][36][37]
• Kfar Etzion
• Hebron

1948 Arab–Israeli War

Arab villages

Palestinian Arab residents were expelled from hundreds of towns and villages by the Israel Defense Forces, or fled in fear as the Israeli army advanced. Around 400 Arab towns and villages were depopulated.

Jewish villages

Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem were depopulated by Jordanian forces following the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank. Some were repopulated after the Six-Day War.

In areas that became Israel

Beit Eshel Hartuv Mishmar HaYarden Nirim Nitzanim Kibbutz Gesher

In areas that became the West Bank

• Atarot
• Beit HaArava
• Jewish Quarter (Jerusalem)
• Kalia
• Neve Yaakov
• Gush Etzion[38] near Jerusalem:
  • Ein Tzurim
  • Kfar Etzion
  • Masuot Yitzhak
  • Neve Daniel
  • Revadim

In areas that became Gaza Strip (All-Palestine protectorate)

• Kfar Darom (resettled but evacuated as part of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005)

Israel-Syria border

• Hauran

In Transjordan

• Tel Or

Six-Day War

West Bank

Three Arab villages, Bayt Nuba, Imwas and Yalo, located in the Latrun Corridor were destroyed on the orders of Yitzhak Rabin due to the corridor's strategic location and route to Jerusalem and because of the residents' alleged aiding of Egyptian commandos in their attack on the city of Lod. The residents of the three villages were offered compensation but were not allowed to return.[39]

Hebron/Bethlehem area[40]

• Surit
• Beit Awwa
• Beit Mirsem
• Shuyoukh

Jordan Valley[40]

• al-Jiftlik (depopulated but soon repopulated)
• Agarith
• Huseirat

Jerusalem area[40]

• Nabi Samwil

In the Negev/Sinai Desert

• Auja al-Hafir – A demilitarized zone

Golan Heights

Over 100,000 Golan Heights residents were evacuated from about 25 villages whether on orders of the Syrian government or through fear of an attack by the Israeli Defense Forces and expulsion after the ceasefire.[41] During the following months, more than a hundred Syrian villages were destroyed by Israel.[42]

1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty

Israeli settlements

Israeli settlements in the Sinai Peninsula were evacuated as a result of the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty.

• Avshalom
• Atzmona
• Dikla
• Holit
• Netiv HaAsara, Sinai
• Nitzanei Sinai
• Ofira
• Sufa
• Talmei Yosef
• Yamit

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

As a part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, 21 civilian Israeli settlements were forcibly evacuated, as well as an area in the northern West Bank containing four Israeli villages. The residential buildings were razed by Israel but public structures were left intact. The religious structures not removed by Israel were later destroyed by Palestinians.

Israeli settlements

In the Gaza Strip (all 21 settlements, as well as 1 Bedouin village):
Bedolah Bnei Atzmon (Atzmona) Dahaniyya (Bedouin) Dugit Elei Sinai Gadid Gan Or	Ganei Tal Katif Kfar Darom Kfar Yam Kerem Atzmona Morag	Neveh Dekalim Netzarim Netzer Hazani Nisanit Pe'at Sade Rafiah Yam	Slav Shirat Hayam Tel Katifa
In the West Bank (4 settlements):
Kadim	Ganim	Homesh	Sa-Nur

See also

• Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War
• Transfer Committee
• 1948 Palestinian exodus

References

1. Said and Hitchens, 2001, p. 217; notes 28, 29, on p. 232
2. Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939, UNC Press Books, 1987 p.60. The Sursocks sold Jinujar, Tall al-Adas, Jabata, Khuneifis, Jeida, Harbaj, Harithiya, Affula, Shuna, Jidru, Majdal.
3. Barbara Jean Smith, The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy, 1920–1929, Syracuse University Press, 1993 pp.96–97;
4. Mark A. Tessler, A History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, Indiana University Press, 1994 p.177, writes 'The Sursock deal is known to have involved the eviction of about 8000 tenants "compensated" at three pounds ten shillings [about $17] a head.'
5. Huneidi and Khalidi, 2001, p. 223
6. Palestine Commission on the Disturbances of August 1929, H.M.S.O., 1930, vol.1 p.437:'The Sursock titles should have been looked into as was acknowledged by the government officials themselves.The transfer became an irregular one, if not an illegal one, because the peasants' claims were not satisfied.'
7. Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, vol.2 (Une mission sacrée de civilisation), Fayard, Paris, 2002 pp.143–148.
8. Benny Morris, Righteous Victims. First Vintage 2001 edition, p55.
9. Avneri, 1984, pp. 96-98
10. Avneri, 1984, p. 203
11. Karmon, 1960, p. 167
12. Moshe Dayan, cited in Rogan and Shlaim, 2001, p. 207
13. Grootkerk, 2000, pp. 280-1
14. Stein, 1987, p. 60
15. Karmon, 1960, p. 163
16. Khalidi, 1992, p. xix
17. Khalidi, 1992, pp. XIX-XX
18. Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Baisan, p. 31
19. Mills, 1932, p. 79
20. Pringles, 1997, p. 62
21. Avneri, 1984, pp. 156-7
22. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 14
23. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 49
24. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 13
25. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 47
26. Avneri, 1984, p. 210, note #87, on p. 297
27. Khalidi, 1992, p. 158
28. Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Haifa, p. 34
29. Sandra Marlene Sufian and Mark LeVine (2007) Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel–Palestine Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0-7425-4639-X pp. 32
30. Avneri, 1984, p. 122
31. Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol 6, entry "Colonies, Agricultural", p. 287.
32. "(List of villages destroyed before 1948)רשימת הכפרים שנהרסו לפני 1948". Retrieved December 4, 2012.
33. Kark and Oren-Nordheim, 2001, p.319
34. Sylva M. Gelber, No Balm in Gilead: A Personal Retrospective of Mandate Days in Palestine, Carleton University/McGill University Press 1989 p.88.
35. Friedland, Roger; Hecht, Roger (2000). To Rule Jerusalem. University of California Press. p. 436. ISBN 978-0-520-22092-8.
36. Shragai, Nadav (January 4, 2004). "11 Jewish families move into J'lem neighborhood of Silwan". Haaretz.
37. Palestine Post, August 15, 1938, p. 2
38. History of the Etzion Bloc: The Siege and Fall Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine Page 8 of 11
39. Oren, 2002, pp. 307.
40. UN Doc A/8389 Archived 2014-02-03 at the Wayback Machine of 5 October 1971
41. REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ISRAELI PRACTICES AFFECTING THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE POPULATION OF THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Archived 2015-02-23 at the Wayback Machine (UN Doc A/8089) 5 October 1970
42. "The Fate of Abandoned Arab Villages, 1965–1969" by Aron Shai (History & Memory - Volume 18, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2006, pp. 86–106)

Bibliography

• Avneri, Arieh L. (1984). The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-settlement and the Arabs, 1878–1948. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0-87855-964-7.
• Barron, J.B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945.
• Grootkerk, Salomon E. (2000). Ancient sites in Galilee: a toponymic gazetteer (Illustrated ed.). BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-11535-4.
• Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Centre.
• Huneidi, Sahar; Khalidi, W. (2001). A Broken Trust: Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians 1920-1925. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 1-86064-172-5.
• Kark, R.; Oren-Nordheim, Michal (2001). Jerusalem and its environs: quarters, neighborhoods, villages, 1800-1948 (Illustrated ed.). Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8143-2909-2.
• Karmon, Y. (1960). "An Analysis of Jacotin's Map of Palestine" (PDF). Israel Exploration Journal. 10 (3, 4): 155–173, 244–253.
• Khalidi, W. (1992). All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
• Pringle, Denys (1997). Secular Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: An Archaeological Gazetter. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521-46010-7.
• Rogan, E.; Shlaim, A. (2001). The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-79476-5.
• Said, E.; Hitchens, C. (2001). Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question. Verso. p. 217. ISBN 1859843409. Retrieved 29 October 2014.

External links

• UN map of the 1947 plan
• The Destroyed Villages on Google Earth - Arab only