Zarnuqa
Zarnuqa | |
---|---|
Zarnuqa | |
Arabic | زرنوقة |
Name meaning | "The rivulet"[1] |
Subdistrict | Ramle |
Coordinates | 31°52′49.05″N 34°47′23.04″E / 31.8802917°N 34.7897333°ECoordinates: 31°52′49.05″N 34°47′23.04″E / 31.8802917°N 34.7897333°E |
Palestine grid | 130/143 |
Population | 2,620 (1945) |
Area | 7,545 dunams |
Date of depopulation | 27–28 May 1948[2] |
Cause(s) of depopulation | Expulsion by Yishuv forces |
Current localities | Rehovot, Kvutzat Shiller, Gibton and Givat Brenner |
Zarnuqa (Arabic: زرنوقة), also Zarnuga,[3] was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was depopulated on 27–28 May 1948 during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
History
Ottoman era
The village appeared as an unnamed village on the map of Pierre Jacotin compiled in 1799.[4]
Some of the inhabitants of Zarnuqa were Egyptians who arrived in Palestine with the army of Ibrahim Pasha.[5]
In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described the Zarnuqa as a large adobe village "with cactus hedges around it and wells in the gardens."[6]
In 1890, the region between Zarnuqa and Ramle, a stretch of 10,000 dunams, was described as an uncultivated wasteland.[7] In March 1892, a dispute over pasture rights erupted between the shepherds of Zarnuqa and the Jewish farmers of the newly established moshava of Rehovot, which was finally resolved in the courts.[5] In 1913, a violent clash sparked by the theft of grapes from a Rishon LeZion vineyard resulted in the deaths of two Jews from Rehovot and an Arab of Zarnuqa. The incident occurred when members of Hashomer, a newly formed Jewish defense organization, confronted two Arab villagers caught stealing. The confrontation, described as one of the first violent encounters between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, led to a mass brawl.[8]
Economy
In 1929, Zarnuqa had 1,122 dunams of citrus orchards and most of its economic growth derived from citriculture.[9] In 1934, Zionist writer Ze'ev Smilansky attributed the modernization of the village to its proximity to Rehovot and land sales to Jews by both effendis and fellahin. Advanced farming technologies were introduced under the tuition of their Jewish neighbors.[9]
Education
In 1945, the village had a population of 2,620. The village had two elementary schools, with one of them for boys (founded in 1924) and the other one for girls (founded in 1943). In 1945, the schools had an enrollment of 252 respectively 45. Zarnuqa was located 10 km southwest of Ramla.[10]
1948 and aftermath
At the beginning of December 1947, the residents of Zarnuqa considered entering into a non-belligerency pact with Rehovot but apparently it was not formalized. In April 1948, Arab irregulars moved into the village. The Dar Shurbaji clan was in favor of the village surrendering its weapons and accept protection by Haganah but others objected. Women, children and the elderly were evacuated to the nearby village of Yibna, leaving the Shurbajis and several dozen armed men from other clans. Zarnuqa was depopulated on 27–28 May by the Givati Brigade during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. One account in Al HaMishmar described how a soldier fired with a Sten gun at three people (one old man, old woman and a child) and how the villagers were taken out from the houses and had to stay in the sun, in hunger and thirst, until they surrendered the weapons they claimed they did not have. They were then expelled towards Yibna. In total, six died and 22 were taken prisoners. The day after, the inhabitants returned and recounted that the Yibna villagers saw them as traitors. The Zarnuqa villagers saw their village being ransacked by Jewish soldiers and nearby settlers. They were expelled again and the houses were demolished the month after.[11]
The family of the Shaqaqi brothers, Fathi (one of the founders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad) and the political scientist Khalil Ibrahim, was from Zarnuqa.[10][12] They fled in the face of rumours of massacres of Palestinians by Yishuv troops and expected to return after the hostilities ended. They were not permitted to come back.[13] Haidar Eid, Associate Professor at al-Aqsa University in Gaza, states that his parent were evicted from the village by members of the Haganah and Stern gang who told them: "Leave your homes or we will kill and rape you".[14]
After the establishment of Israel, the Zarnuqa ma'abara was established on the site to house Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe and Arab lands.[15]
References
- ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 277
- ↑ Morris, 2004, p xix village #250. Also gives cause of depopulation
- ↑ My Life is a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing, Christoph Reuter
- ↑ Karmon, 1960, p. 171
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-Settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948, Aryeh L. Avneri
- ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 414
- ↑ The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-Settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948, Aryeh L. Avneri
- ↑ New documents reveal early Palestinian attitudes toward Zionist settlements
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 California Dreaming: Ideology, Society, and Technology in the Citrus, Nahum Karlinsky
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Welcome To Zarnuqa, Palestine Remembered
- ↑ Morris, 2004, pp. 258–259
- ↑ S - Personalities, PASSIA
- ↑ Christoph Reuter, My Life is a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing, Princeton University Press, (2002) 2004 p. 96.
- ↑ Haidar Eid, 'Diary of an Israeli war,' Al-Jazeera 21 July 2014.
- ↑ New World Hasidim: Ethnographic Studies of Hasidic Jews in America, ed. Janet S. Belcove-Shalin
Bibliography
- Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
- Cohen, Hillel (2008). Army of Shadows, Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25221-9.
- Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, H. H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Guérin, Victor (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine. 1; Judee, pt. 2. p. 52
- Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
- Johnson, Penny: Take My Camel: The Disappearing Camels of Jerusalem and Jaffa, jerusalemquarterly.org
- Karmon, Y. (1960). "An Analysis of Jacotin's Map of Palestine". Israel Exploration Journal 10 (3,4): 155–173; 244–253.
- 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.
- Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
- Morris, Benny (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.
- Petersen, Andrew (2001). A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine: Volume I (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-727011-0. Zarnuqa: p. 320-321
External links
- SWP map 16, IAA
- SWP map 16, Wikimedia commons
- Welcome To Zarnuqa
- Zarnuqa from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center