Naghnaghiya

Village in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine

Naghnaghiya النغْنغية Al-Naghnaghiyya
Village
1870s map 1940s map modern map 1940s with modern overlay map A series of historical maps of the area around Naghnaghiya (click the buttons)
32°36′12″N 35°09′27″E / 32.60333°N 35.15750°E / 32.60333; 35.15750
Palestine grid	164/223
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Haifa
Date of depopulation	12-13 April 1948^[2]
Area
• Total	12,139 dunams (12.139 km² or 4.687 sq mi)
Population (1931)
• Total	416^[1]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces

Naghnaghiya (Arabic: النغْنغية, Al-Naghnaghiyya) was a Palestinian Arab village, 28.5 kilometers (17.7 mi) southeast of Haifa.^[3] It was depopulated before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.^[4]

Location

The village was on the north edge of a hill at the edge of a wadi bed, overlooking the Jezreel Valley and the Nazareth hills to the north and northeast. It was the smallest of a group of three villages (known collectively as al-Ghubayyat) located together; the others were Al-Ghubayya al-Fawqa and Al-Ghubayya al-Tahta. Next to al- Naghnaghiya was an artificial mound that bore the same name. Two kilometers to the southeast, on the highway to Jenin was Tall al-Mutasallim, identified with Megiddo.^[3]

History

In 1888, during Ottoman rule, an elementary school was built that was shared by the three al-Ghubayyat villages.^[3]

British Mandate era

In the British Mandate of Palestine period, in the 1922 census of Palestine Al Naghnaghiyeh had a population of 272; all Muslims,^[5] increasing in the 1931 census to 416, still all Muslims, in a total of 78 houses.^[1]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Al-Ghubayya al-Fawqa, Al-Ghubayya al-Tahta and Naghnaghiya was 1,130, all Muslims,^[6] and it had 12,139 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.^[7] 209 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 10,883 for cereals,^[8] while no data were given for built-up (urban) land.^[9]

1948, and after

Before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, on the night of the 12–13 April 1948, Naghnaghiya and the neighbouring village of al-Mansi were attacked by the Palmach, a Jewish militia.^[4] By 15 April, both villages had been depopulated, and they were then blown up by the Jewish militia forces in order to block the return of the villagers.^[10]

According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, describing the village in 1992: "The remains of houses are scattered on the slope of one hill. The site, traversed by the Haifa-Megiddo highway and partly occupied by an Israeli soccer field, is difficult to identify."^[11]

References

^ ^a ^b Mills, 1932, p. 95
^ Morris, 2004, p. xviii village #149. Also gives cause of depopulation
^ ^a ^b ^c Khalidi, 1992, p. 179
^ ^a ^b Morris, 2004, p. 242
^ Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Haifa, p. 35
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 13
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 47
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 90
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 140
^ Morris, 2004, p. 346
^ Khalidi, 1992, p. 180

Bibliography

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.
Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
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.