Al-Haditha, Ramle
| Al-Haditha | |
|---|---|
  Al-Haditha | |
| Arabic | الحديثة |
| Name meaning | "new"[1] |
| Subdistrict | Ramle |
| Coordinates | 31°57′48″N 34°57′07″E / 31.96333°N 34.95194°ECoordinates: 31°57′48″N 34°57′07″E / 31.96333°N 34.95194°E |
| Palestine grid | 145/152 |
| Population | 760[2][3] (1945) |
| Date of depopulation | July 12, 1948[4] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces |
| Current localities | Hadid[5][6] |
Al-Haditha was a Palestinian village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was located 8 km northeast of Ramla, on the bank of Wadi al-Natuf. The site, now known as Tel Hadid, has yielded significant archaeological remains from many periods. Al-Haditha was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 12, 1948 under the first stage of Operation Dani.
History
It has been suggested that Al-Haditha was the site of the biblical village of Hadid, mentioned in the Book of Ezra (II, 33) and later in the Mishna as a city of Judea fortified by Joshua.[7] Hadid was called 'Adida in the Book of Maccabees, while Eusebius referred to it as Adatha or Aditha.[7]
Ottoman era
In 1870, Victor Guérin visited and "at a quarter of an hour's distance south-east of Haditheh, [he] found several ancient tombs cut in the rock. The village of Haditheh he found to be on the site of an ancient town. Cisterns, a birket, tombs, and rock-cut caves, with cut stones scattered about, are all that remain."[8]
An official Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that "El Hadite" had 28 houses and a population of 145, though the population count included only men.[9][10]
In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village as "a moderate-sized village on a terraced Tell at the mouth of a valley at the foot of the hills, with a well on the east. There are remains of a considerable town round it, tombs and quarries exist ; and the mound on which the village stands is covered with pottery."[11]
British Mandate era
In a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Hadata had a population of 415 inhabitants; all Muslims,[12] increasing in the 1931 census to 520, still all Muslims, in a total of 119 houses.[13]
In 1945, the village had a population of 760 Muslims,[2] with a total of 7,110 dunums of land.[3] A total of 10 dunams of village land were used for citrus and bananas, 4,419 dunums were used for cereals, 246 dunums were irrigated or used for plantations,[14] while 16 dunams were built–up, or urban, land.[15]
1948, aftermath
Early in 1948, the Mukhtar of Al-Haditha met to negotiate a non–belligerent agreement with the neighbouring Ben Shemen.[16] However, Al-Haditha was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 12, 1948 under the first stage of Operation Dani.[4]
In September, 1948, Ben-Gurion asked the ministerial committee for permission to destroy 14 villages, one of which was Al-Haditha.[17]
References
- ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 229
- 1 2 Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 29
- 1 2 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 66
- 1 2 Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #224. Also gives cause of depopulation.
- ↑ Morris, 2004, p. xxi, settlement #88. Also gives cause of depopulation.
- ↑ Khalidi, 1991, p. 381
- 1 2 Neubauer, 1868, pp. 85-86
- ↑ Guérin, 1875, pp. 64 -67, as given in Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 322
- ↑ Socin, 1879, p. 154
- ↑ Hartmann, 1883, p. 140, noted 26 houses
- ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 297
- ↑ Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p. 22
- ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 20.
- ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 115
- ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 165
- ↑ Morris, 2004, p. 92
- ↑ Morris, 2004, p. 354
Bibliography
- Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
- 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.
- Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
- Guérin, Victor (1875). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 2: Samarie, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
- Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
- Hartmann, M. (1883). "Die Ortschaftenliste des Liwa Jerusalem in dem türkischen Staatskalender für Syrien auf das Jahr 1288 der Flucht (1871)". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 6: 102–149.
- 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 0-521-00967-7.
- Neubauer, Adolf (1868). La géographie du Talmud : mémoire couronné par l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (in French). Paris: Lévy.
- 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.
- Socin, A. (1879). "Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 2: 135–163.
External links
- Welcome To al-Haditha
- al-Haditha, Zochrot
- Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14: IAA, Wikimedia commons
