Al-'Abisiyya

Village in Safad, Mandatory Palestine

Al-'Abisiyya العابسية
Village
Etymology: From personal name^[1]
1870s map 1940s map modern map 1940s with modern overlay map A series of historical maps of the area around Al-'Abisiyya (click the buttons)
33°11′55″N 35°37′59″E / 33.19861°N 35.63306°E / 33.19861; 35.63306
Palestine grid	209/289
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Safad
Date of depopulation	May 25, 1948^[3]
Population (1945)
• Total	1,220^[2]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Influence of nearby town's fall
Current Localities	Sde Nehemia

Al-'Abisiyya was a Palestinian Arab village in the District of Safad. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on May 29, 1948, by The Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach. It was located 28.5 km northeast of Safad near to the Banyas River which the village relied on for irrigation.

History

The village contained the khirbas of Tall al-Sakhina, Tall al-Shari'a, and al-Shaykh Ghannam.

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village as "a collection of mud hovels in the plain of the Huleh, on the Nahr Banias containing seventy Moslems. They till the land, which is arable round the village, there is a large supply of water and some trees near the village."^[4]

British Mandate era

In the 1931 census of Palestine, during the British Mandate for Palestine, the village had a population of 609, all Muslims, in a total of 31 houses.^[5]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Al-'Abisiyya (including nearby Azaziyat, Ein Fit and Khirbat es Summan) was 1,220 Muslims,^[2] with a total of 15,429 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.^[6] Arabs used 4 dunums of land for citrus and bananas, 6,390 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 2,830 for cereals;^[7] while 17 dunams was built-up (urban) area.^[8]

1948, aftermath

In May, 1948, Sde Nehemia requested, "somewhat shamefacedly", 1,700 dunams of land from the newly depopulated village of Al-'Abisiyya.^[9]

References

^ Palmer, 1881, p. 13
^ ^a ^b Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 9
^ Morris, 2004, p. xvi, village #13. Also gives cause of depopulation.
^ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p.86
^ Mills, 1932, p. 105
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 69 Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine.
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 118
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 168
^ Morris, 2004, p. 363, note #130, p. 402

Bibliography

Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 1. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center. Archived from the original on 2018-12-08. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
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.
Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
Morris, B. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.