Al-Sawalima was a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

village in the Jaffa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on March 30, 1948. It was located 11 km northeast of

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

, situated 2 km north of the al-'Awja River.

History

In 1051 AH/1641/2, the Bedouin tribe of al-Sawālima from around

attacked the villages of Subṭāra, Bayt Dajan, al-Sāfiriya, Jindās, Lydda and Yāzūr belonging to Waqf Haseki Sultan. In 1882 the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' noted at ''Khurbet es Sualimiyeh'': “Traces of ruins only.“ Excavations revealed traces of Late Ottoman

infant In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of ...

jar-burials, commonly associated with

nomads Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, Nomadic pastoralism, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and Merchant, trader nomads. In the twentieth century, ...

or itinerant workers of

Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...

origins.Taxel, Y., Marom, R., & Nagar, Y. (2025)
An Infant Jar Burial from Zarnūqa: Muslim Funerary Practices and Migrant Communities in Late Ottoman Palestine
'''Atiqot'', 117, 269–293.

British Mandate era

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Sawalmeh'' had a population of 70

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jaffa, p
20
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census when ''Es-Sawalmeh'' had 429 Muslim inhabitants.Mills, 1932, p
17
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, the village had a population of 800 Muslims, while the total land area was 5,942

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s, according to an official land and population survey. Of the land area, a total of 894 were used for growing

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. ''Citrus'' is nativ ...

and

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

, 191 were for plantations and irrigable land, 4,566 for cereals, while 291 dunams were classified as non-cultivable areas. Al-Sawalima had an elementary school for boys founded in 1946, with 31 students.Khalidi, 1992, p. 258

1948 and aftermath

Benny Morris Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...

gives "Fear of being caught up in the fighting" and "Influence of nearby town's fall" as reasons for why the village became depopulated on March 30, 1948. In 1992 the village site was described: "Cactuses grow on the village site. No identifiable traces of the former dwellings (tents or adobe houses) remain. Only the remnants of the one-room school are discernable. A highway runs past the north side of the site."Khalidi, 1992, p. 259

References

Bibliography

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External links

Welcome To al-Sawalimaal-Sawalima
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 13
IAA

Wikimedia commons
{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Jaffa