List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Below is a list of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict, many of them during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
[edit] 1936 Arab Revolt
- Kfar Shiloah (now part of Jerusalem)
[edit] 1948 Arab-Israeli War
[edit] Arab villages
Villages are arranged according to the pre-1948 British Mandate subdistrict they were situated in. The list does not include Arab districts of mixed cities which were partly or wholly depopulated, among them Haifa, Lod, Ramla, Safad, Ashdod (Isdud), Ashkelon (Majdal) and Bet Shean (Beisan), which all had majority Arab populations before the war.
[edit] District of Acre
[edit] District of Baysan
[edit] District of Beersheba
[edit] District of Gaza
[edit] District of Haifa
[edit] District of Hebron
[edit] District of Jaffa
[edit] District of Jerusalem
[edit] District of Jenin
[edit] District of Nazareth
[edit] District of al-Ramla
[edit] District of Safad
|
[edit] District of Tiberias
[edit] District of Tulkarm
[edit] Jewish villages
Jewish neighborhoods of Hebron and East Jerusalem were abandoned in 1929 and 1948 respectively. These and some others on the list have been re-settled since the Six-Day War.
[edit] State of Israel
[edit] West Bank
- Atarot (now part of Jerusalem)
- Beit Ha'arava
- Ein Tzurim
- Kalia
- Kfar Etzion
- Masuot Yitzhak
- Neve Yaakov (now part of Jerusalem)
- Revadim
- Silwan (now part of Jerusalem)
[edit] Gaza Strip
- Kfar Darom (re-settled but evacuated as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2005)
[edit] Comparative figures 1947-1949
Several authors have conducted studies on the number of Palestinian localities which were destroyed and/or depopulated during the 1947-1948 period. Based on their respective calculations, the table below summarises their information on the depopulated and destroyed areas of Palestine[2].
| Reference | Towns | Villages | Tribes | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morris | 10 | 342 | 17 | 369 |
| Khalidi | 1 | 400 | 17 | 418 |
| Abu Sitta | 13 | 419 | 99 | 531 |
Source: The table data was taken from Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34.
Note: For information on methodologies; see: Morris, Benny (1987): The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987; Khalidi, Walid (ed.): All that Remains. The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington, D.C: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992, App. IV, pp. xix, 585-586; and Sitta, Salman Abu: The Palestinian Nakba 1948. London: The Palestinian Return Centre, 2000.
According to COHRE and BADIL, Morris’s list of affected localities, the shortest of the three, includes towns but excludes other localities cited by Khalidi and/or Abu Sitta. The six sources compared in Khalidi’s study have in common 296 of the villages listed as destroyed and/or depopulated. Sixty other villages are cited in all but one source. Of the total of 418 localities cited in Khalidi, 292 (70 percent) were completely destroyed and 90 (22 percent) “largely destroyed”. Khalidi notes that in cases where habitations were not completely demolished or obliterated, Jewish families simply moved into homes belonging to Palestinians who had fled. He also notes that other sources refer to an additional 151 localities that are omitted from his study for various reasons (for example, major cities and towns that were depopulated, as well as some Bedouin encampments and villages ‘vacated’ before the start of hostilities). Abu Sitta’s list, which is the most comprehensive, includes tribes in Beersheba that lost lands; most of these were omitted from Khalidi’s work.
Another study, involving field research and comparisons with British and other documents, concludes that 472 Palestinian habitations (including towns and villages) were destroyed in 1948. It notes that the devastation was virtually complete in some sub-districts. For example, 96.0% of the villages in the Jaffa area were totally destroyed, as were 90.0% of those in Tiberias, 90.3% of those in Safad, and 95.9% of those in Beisan. It also extrapolates from 1931 British census data to estimate that over 70 280 Palestinian houses were destroyed in this period[3].
In another study, Abu Sitta[4] shows the following findings in eight distinct phases of the depopulation of Palestine between 1947-1949. His findings are summarized in the table below:
| Phase: | No. of destroyed/depopulated localities | No. of refugees | Jewish/Israeli lands (km2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Nov. 1947 - Mar. 1948 Partition Plan to Plan Dalet |
30 | >22.600* | 1.159'4 |
| Apr. - 13 May 1948 Plan Dalet to State of Israel (Tiberias, Jaffa, Haifa, Safad, etc.) |
199 | >400.000 | 3.363'9 |
| 15 May - 11 June 1948 15 May to 1st Truce (an additional 90 villages) |
290 | >500.000 | 3.943'1 |
| 12 June - 18 July 1948 (Lydda/Ramleh, Nazareth, etc.) |
378 | >628.000 | 5.224'2 |
| 19 July - 24 Oct. 1948 (Galilee and southern areas) |
418 | >664.000 | 7.719'6 |
| 24 Oct. - 5 Nov. 1948 (Galilee, etc.) |
465 | >730.000 | 10.099'6 |
| 5 Nov. 1948 - 18 Jan. 1949 (Negev, etc.) |
481 | >754.000 | 12.366'3 |
| 19 Jan. - 20 July 1949 (Negev, etc.) |
531 | >804.000 | 20.350'0 |
* Other sources put this figure at over 70 000.
Source: The table data was taken from Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34. The source being: Abu Sitta, Salman (2001): From Refugees to Citizens at Home. London: Palestine Land Society and Palestinian Return Centre, 2001.
[edit] Six-Day War
Three Arab villages located in the Latrun Corridor were destroyed based on the orders of Yitzhak Rabin due to the corridor's strategic location and route to Jerusalem and because of the residents' aiding of Egyptian commandos in their attack on the city of Lod. The residents of the three villages received compensation but were not allowed to return.[5]
The villages are the following.
In addition to the villages abandoned in the West Bank during the Six-Day War, over 100,000 Golan Heights residents abandoned about 25 villages whether on orders of the Syrian government or the fear of an attack by the Israeli Defense Forces.
[edit] See also
- List of Palestinian refugee camps
- Jewish exodus from Arab lands
- List of Israeli military operations in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
- List of massacres committed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Governments |  Egypt •  Iraq •  Israel •  Jordan •  Lebanon •  Palestinian National Authority •  Kingdom of Saudi Arabia •  Syria •  Yemen |
| Active organizations | Amal • al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades •  Arab League • Arab Liberation Front •  Ba'ath Party •  Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine • Fatah • Guardians of the Cedars •  Hamas •  Hezbollah • Jaish al-Islam • Kataeb • Lebanese Forces • Palestinian Islamic Jihad • Palestine Liberation Front • Palestine Liberation Organisation • Palestinian Popular Struggle Front •  Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine • Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command • Popular Resistance Committees • as-Saiqa |
| Former | South Lebanon Army • Arab Higher Committee • Arab Liberation Army • Holy War Army • Irgun (Etzel) • Lehi • Black Hand • Black September •  Mandate of Palestine |
| Other Governments |  Iran •  Norway •  Turkey •  United Kingdom •  United States |
| Other Organizations |  European Union •  United Nations |
| Other Former |  Soviet Union •  United Arab Republic |
|
|
|
|---|---|
 Lester B. Pearson • Abd al-Hakim Amer • Hosni Mubarak • Gamal Abdel Nasser • Anwar Sadat • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad • Ali Khamenei • Ruhollah Khomeini • Ehud Barak • Menachem Begin • David Ben-Gurion • Moshe Dayan • Levi Eshkol • Golda Meir • Benjamin Netanyahu • Ehud Olmert • Shimon Peres • Yitzhak Rabin • Ariel Sharon • Chaim Weizmann • King Abdullah I • King Abdullah II • King Hussein • Emile Lahoud • Hassan Nasrallah • Fouad Siniora • Mona Juul • Johan Jørgen Holst • Terje Rød-Larsen • Mahmoud Abbas • Yasser Arafat • George Habash • Ismail Haniya • Amin al-Husayni • Khaled Mashal • Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi • Ahmed Shukeiri • Ahmed Yassin • King Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud) • King Abdullah • King Fahd • King Faisal •  Folke Bernadotte • Hafez al-Assad • Bashar al-Assad • Shukri al-Quwatli • Salah Jadid • Ernest Bevin • Richard Crossman • Harry Truman |
|
|
|
|---|---|
| 1920 Palestine riots • 1921 Jaffa riots • 1929 Palestine riots • 1936–1939 Arab revolt • 1947 Jerusalem riots • 1947-1948 Civil War in Palestine • 1948 Arab-Israeli War • 1950s terrorism against Israel • 1953 Qibya massacre • 1956 Suez Crisis • 1967 Six-Day War • 1968–1970 War of Attrition • 1972 Munich Olympics massacre • 1972 Operation Wrath of God • 1973 Israeli raid on Lebanon • 1973 Yom Kippur War • 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War • 1976 Operation Entebbe • 1978 South Lebanon conflict • 1981 Operation Opera • 1982 Lebanon War • 1982–2000 South Lebanon conflict • 1985 Operation Wooden Leg • 1987–1990 First Intifada • 1991 Gulf War • 1993 Operation Accountability • 1993-present Palestinian suicide attacks • 1996 Operation Grapes of Wrath • 2000–present Al-Aqsa Intifada • 2002 Operation Defensive Shield • 2003 Ain es Saheb airstrike • 2004 Operation Rainbow • 2004 Operation Days of Penitence • 2006 Israel-Gaza conflict • 2006 Lebanon War • 2007 Israeli-Palestinian conflict |
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Damascus Protocol • Hussein-McMahon Correspondence • Sykes-Picot Agreement • 1917 Balfour Declaration • Declaration to the Seven • Anglo-French Declaration • 1919 Faisal-Weizmann Agreement • 1920 San Remo conference • 1922 Churchill White Paper • 1939 White Paper • 1947 UN Partition Plan • 1948 Establishment of Israel • 1948 UNGA Resolution 194 • 1949 Armistice Agreements • 1964 Palestinian National Covenant • 1967 Khartoum Resolution • 1967 UNSC Resolution 242 • 1973 UNSC Resolution 338 • 1973 UNSC Resolution 339 • 1974 UNSC Resolution 350 • 1978 UNSC Resolution 425 • 1978 Camp David Accords • 1979 UNSC Resolution 446 • 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty • 1979 UNSC Resolution 452 • 1980 UNSC Resolution 478 • 1981 UNSC Resolution 497 • 1983 Israel-Lebanon agreement • 1991 Madrid Conference • 1993 Oslo Accords • 1994 Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace • 1998 Wye River Memorandum • 2000 Camp David Summit • 2001 Taba Summit • 2001 UNSC Resolution 1373 • 2002 Beirut Summit and Peace Initiative • 2002 Road map for peace • 2004 UNSC Resolution 1559 • 2004 UNSC Resolution 1566 • 2005 UNSC Resolution 1583 • 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh Summit • 2005 Israel's unilateral disengagement plan • 2006 Palestinian Prisoners' Document • 2006 UNSC Resolution 1701 • 2006 Franco-Italian-Spanish Peace Plan |
[edit] Notes
- ^ Claimed to be Lebanese by Hezbollah.
- ^ Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 34.
- ^ Saleh, Abdul Jawad and Walid Mustafa (1987): Palestine: The Collective Destruction of Palestinian Villages and Zionist Colonisation 1882-1982. London: Jerusalem Centre for Development Studies, 1987, p. 30.
- ^ Abu Sitta, Salman (2001): From Refugees to Citizens at Home. London: Palestine Land Society and Palestinian Return Centre, 2001.
- ^ Oren, 2002, pp. 307.
[edit] References
- Walid Khalidi (ed.), "All that Remains", Institute for Palestine Studies (Washington), 1992.
[edit] External links
- UN map of the 1947 plan
- The Destroyed Villages on Google Earth
- www.palestineremembered.com
- Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maps (flash website - click Israel's Changing Borders and then Jewish Communities Lost)
