Al-Buwayziyya
| Al-Buwayziyya | |
|---|---|
  Al-Buwayziyya | |
| Arabic | البويزية والميس |
| Also spelled | Buweiziya,[1][2] |
| Subdistrict | Safad |
| Coordinates | 33°09′22.04″N 35°34′13.85″E / 33.1561222°N 35.5705139°ECoordinates: 33°09′22.04″N 35°34′13.85″E / 33.1561222°N 35.5705139°E |
| Palestine grid | 203/284 |
| Population | 510[3] (1945) |
| Area | 14620[3] dunams |
| Date of depopulation | May 11, 1948[4] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Influence of nearby town's fall |
Al-Buwayziyya (Arabic: البويزية والميس) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on May 11, 1948 by the Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach. It was located 22 km northeast of Safad.
In 1945 it had a population 510. The village had elementary school for boys which was founded in 1937.
History
Al-Buwayziyya was situated on the western edge of the Hula Valley Plain, on the lower, rocky slopes of Mount ‘Amil.[5] It was located on the western side of a highway that ran from the city of Tiberias to the northernmost Palestinian village of Al-Mutilla. The village had many springs that provided drinking water.[5] In 1931 it had a population of 318 people, and the people who were predominantly Muslim, were mostly engaged in agriculture and mainly grew citrus fruits, grains and vegetables. In 1944/45 a total of 2,770 dunums was allocated to cereal farming whilst 56 dunums was used for irrigation and orchards.[5]
The village was attacked by Israeli forces on 11 May 1948 as part of Operation Yiftach which depopulated eastern Galilee. According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, al-Buwayziyya’s residents fled when they learned that the neighboring village of al-Khalisa, 5 km to the north, had succumbed to Jewish forces and as a result the village had been evacuated after the Haganah declined the villagers’ request for conditional permission to stay.[5]
Today all that remains is a few destroyed houses, walls and terraces, and the concrete roof of one house.[6]
References
- ↑ Morris, 2004
- ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 69
- ↑ Morris, 2004, p. xvi village #18. Also gives cause of depopulation
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Khalidi, 1992, p.442
- ↑ Khalidi, 1992, p.443
Bibliography
- Hadawi, Sami (1970), Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center
- Khalidi, Walid (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
- Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
External links
- Welcome To al-Buwayziyya
- SWP map IV, IAA
- SWP map 4, Wikimedia commons
- al-Buwayziyya at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
- al-Buwayziyya, Dr. Khalil Rizk.
