Yibna

For the Israeli town, see Yavne.

Yibna' (Template:Lang-ar, in Biblical times, Jabneel, in Roman times, Iamnia, Jamnia, or Yavne, and in the Crusades, Ibelin) was a Palestinian village of 5,420 inhabitants, located 15 kilometers southwest of Ramla. Yibna was occupied by Israeli forces on June 4, 1948, and was depopulated during the military assault and expulsion.

History

Ruins of Yibna mosque built in 1386

The Islamic historian al-Baladhuri mentioned Yibna as one of ten towns in Jund Filastin conquered by the Rashidun army led by 'Amr ibn al-'As in the early 7th century.

In the 9th century, Ya'qubi wrote that Yubna was an ancient city built on a hill that was inhabited by Samaritans.

Al-Muqaddasi, writing around 985, said that "Yubna has a beautiful mosque. From this place come the excellent figs known by the name of Damascene." Yaqut wrote that in Yubna there was a tomb said to be that of Abu Hurairah, the companion (sahaba) of the Prophet. The author of Marasid also adds that tomb seen here is also said to be that of ´Abd Allah ibn Abi Sarh, another companion (sahaba) of the Prophet. A mosque built in 1386 survives until today.

Ottoman era

In 1596, Yibna was part of the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Gaza under the liwa' (district) of Gaza with a population of 710. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, summer crops, sesame seeds and fruits, as well as goats, beehives and vineyards.

The American missionary, William Thomson, who visited Yibna in 1834, described it as a village on hill inhabited by 3,000 Muslim residents who worked in agriculture. He wrote that an inscription on the mosque indicated that it had been built in 1386.

In the late nineteenth century, the Yibna was described as a large village partly built of stone and situated on a hill. It had olive trees and corn to the north, and gardens nearby.

British Mandate era

In 1921, an elementary school for boys was founded in Yibna. By 1941-42 it had 445 students. A school for girls was founded in 1943, and by 1948 it had 44 students.

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Yebna had a population of 1,791; all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 3,600; 2 Jews, 7 Christians, 1 Bahai, and 3,590 Muslims, in a total of 794 houses.

In 1941, Kibbutz Yavne was established nearby by immigrants from Germany, followed by a Youth Aliyah village, Givat Washington, in 1946.

In 1944/45 the village had a population of 5,420, while the total land area was 59,554 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. In addition there were 1,500 nomads living around the village. A total of 6,468 dunums of village land was used for citrus and bananas, 15,124 dunums were used for cereals, 11,091 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 25 dunums were planted with olive trees, while 127 dunams were classified as built-up, urban areas.

1948, and aftermath

In mid-March 1948, a contingent of Iraqi soldiers moved into the village. In a Haganah reprisal on March 30, two dozen villagers were killed. On April 21, the village commander was arrested by the British authorities for the drunken shooting of two Arabs.

During the Arab-Israeli war, residents of Zarnuqa sought refuge in Yibna, but left after the villagers accused them of being traitors.

On May 27, after the fall of Al-Qubayba and Zarnuqa, most of the population of Yibna fled to Isdud, but armed males were refused entry. On June 5, when Israeli troops arrived, they found the village almost deserted apart from a few old people who were ordered to leave.

After 1948, a number of Israeli villages were founded on Yibna land: Kfar HaNagid and Beit Gamliel in 1949, Ben Zakai in 1950, Kfar Aviv (originally: "Kfar HaYeor") in 1951, Tzofiyya in 1955. According to Walid Khalidi, a railroad crosses the village. The old mosque and minaret, together with a shrine can still be seen, and some of the old houses are inhabited by Jewish and Arab families.

Archaeology

Archaeological excavations have revealed three wall segments probably from buildings in the pre-1948 Arab village of Yibna, alongside an unguentarium dating to the Early Roman period. Artifacts from the Byzantine and Roman eras were discovered. Based on their findings, archaeologists concluded that part of the Arab village at Yibna was built on top of a cemetery. Refuse pits from the Byzantine period were found at the foot of the tell.

Cultural references

Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour made Yibna the subject of one of his paintings. The work, named for the village, was one of a series of four on destroyed Palestinian villages that he produced in 1988 in order to resist the cancellation of Palestinian history; the others being Yalo, Imwas and Bayt Dajan.

Notable residents

• Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi
• Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar

See also

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

Bibliography

• Ankori, Gannit (2006). Palestinian Art. Reaktion Books. ISBN 1-86189-259-4.
• Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922 (PDF). Government of Palestine.
• Buchennino, Aviva (2006-01-08). "Yavne". Hadashot Arkheologiyot. Israeli Antiquities Authority. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
• Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, H. H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Fischer, Moshe; Taxel, Itamar (2007). "Ancient Yavneh, Its history and archaeology". Tel Aviv. 34: 204–284.
• Guérin, Victor (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 1: Judee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale. (p. 55 ff )
• Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Centre.
• Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (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. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
• Khalidi, Walid (1992). All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington DC: Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Kletter, Raz (2004-05-31). "el Yavne Final Report" (116). Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas (PDF). Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
• Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. 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.
• Petersen, Andrew (2001). A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology). Vol. I. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-727011-0. (Yibna; p. 313 -319 )
• Pringle, Denys (1997). Secular buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: an archaeological Gazetter. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521 46010 7. p. 108
• Sion, Ofer (2005-08-07). "el Yavne Final Report" (117). Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Strange, Guy le (1890). Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Thomson, William McClure (1859). The Land and the Book: Or, Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery, of the Holy Land. Vol. 2 (1 ed.). New York: Harper & brothers. pp. 313-314
• Velednizki, Noy (2004-05-31). "el Yavne Final Report" (116). Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

External links

• Welcome to Yibna
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Yibna at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
• Yousef Al Hums: 60 Years and Counting, WREMEA, May–June 2008