Tell es-Safi
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| Tell es-Safi | |
| Arabic | تلّ الصافي |
| Also Spelled | Tall al Safi |
| District | Hebron |
| Coordinates | 31°41′59.23″N 34°50′48.77″E / 31.6997861°N 34.8468806°ECoordinates: 31°41′59.23″N 34°50′48.77″E / 31.6997861°N 34.8468806°E |
| Population | 1,290[1] (1945) |
| Jurisdiction | 27,794[2] dunums |
| Date of depopulation | 9-10 July 1948[3] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Israeli forces |
| Current localities | |
  Tell es-Safi
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Tell es-Safi (Arabic: تلّ الصافي) was a Palestinian village, located on the southern banks of Wadi 'Ajjur, 35 kilometers northwest of Hebron. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.[4]
On 7 July 1948 Givati commander Shimon Avidan issued orders to the 51 st Battalion to take the Tall al-Safi area and "to destroy, to kill and to expel [lehashmid, leharog, u´legaresh] refugees encamped in the area, in order to prevent enemy infiltration from the east to this important position."[5]
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[edit] History
Excavations on the site in 1899 revealed continuous human habitation on the site from the third millennium B.C. There is evidence indicating that Tell es-Safi was the place of the Philistine city Gath. The place appears on the Madaba Map as Saphitha. During the Crusades the place was called Blanch Garde ("White guard"), likely referring to the white rock outcrop next to the site. Richard Lion-Heart was nearly captured while inspecting his troops next to the site. During this period a fort was built on the site, this fort was later destroyed by Saladin.[6]
Yaqut al-Hamawi, writing in the 1220s, described the place as a fort near Bayt Jibrin in the Ramleh area, while the Arab geographer Mujir al-Din al-Hanbali (d. ca. 1522), noted that the village was within the administrative jurisdiction of Gaza.[7]
In 1596 Tell al-Safi was a village in the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Gaza under the liwa' (district) of Gaza, with a population of 484. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley and sesame, and fruits, as well as goats and beehives.[8]
In the late nineteenth century, Tell al-Safi was described as a village built of adobe brick with a well in the valley to the north.[9]
The villagers of Tall al-Safi were Muslim, and they had a mosque, a markedplace, and a shrine for a local sage called Shaykh Mohammad. In 1944 a total of 19,716 dunums of land were used for cereals, while 696 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.[10]
[edit] 1948, and after
In 1948, Tell es-Safi was the destination for the women and children of Qastina, sent away by the menfolk of Qastina at this time, but they returned after discovering there was insufficient water in the host village to meet the newcomers needs.[11]
On 7 July Givati commander Shimon Avidan issued orders to the 51 st Battalion to take the Tall al-Safi area and "to destroy, to kill and to expel [lehashmid, leharog, u´legaresh] refugees encamped in the area, in order to prevent enemy infiltration from the east to this important position."[12] According to Benny Morris, the nature of the written order and, presumably, accompanying oral explanations, probably left little doubt in the battalion OC´s minds that Avidan wanted the area cleared of inhabitants.[13][14]
According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the village remaining structures on the village land in 1992 are: "The site is overgrown with wild vegetation, consisting mainly of foxtail and thorny plants, interspersed with cactuses, date-palm and olive trees. There are remnants of a well and the crumbling stone walls of a pool. The surrounding land is planted by Israeli farmers with citrus trees, sunflowers, and grain. A few tents belonging to a group of Bedouin are occasionally pitched nearby."[15]
[edit] References
- ^ Hadawi, 1970, p.50
- ^ Hadawi, 1970, p.50
- ^ Morris, 2004, p xvii village number 292
- ^ "Welcome to Tall al Safi". Palestine Remembered. http://www.palestineremembered.com/Hebron/Tall-al-Safi/index.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-03.
- ^ Morris, 2004, p 436.
- ^ Khalidi, 1992, p. 222
- ^ Khalidi, 1992, p.222
- ^ Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter and Kamal Abdulfattah (1977), Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. p. 150. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 222
- ^ Conder, Claude Reignier and H.H. Kitchener: The Survey of Western Palestine. London:Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. (1881) II:415-16. Also in Khalidi, 1992, p.222
- ^ Hadawi, 1970, p.94. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 222
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. 176.
- ^ Givati, Operation An-Far, 7 July 1948, IDFA 7011\49\\1. Cited in Morris, 2004, p 436. According to Morris, Avraham Ayalon (1963): The Givati Brigade Opposite the Egyptian Invader "gives a laundered version of the order, - which I (unfortunately) used in the original edition of The Birth." The "laundered" version does not contain the words: "to destroy, to kill".
- ^ Morris, 2004, p 437
- ^ Operation An-Far
- ^ Khalidi, 1992, p.222
[edit] Bibliography
- Hadawi, Sami (1970), Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html
- Khalidi, Walid (1992), All That Remains, Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, ISBN 0887282245
- Morris, Benny (2004). Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521009677
[edit] External links
- Tall-al-Safi Palestine Remembered
- Tall al-Safi, at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
