Al-Tina, or Khirbet et-Tineh was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict of

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

. The village was located between the Shfela and southern Israeli coastal plain. It was depopulated during the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

on July 8, 1948, by the Givati Brigade under Operation An-Far. It was located 20. km south of

Ramla Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph S ...

. The hill on which the village was built stands today next to the Kiryat Mal'akhi – Yoav railway station and next to Highway 6. Archeological excavations at the site revealed the remains of a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

settlement.

History

Based on the archaeological excavation in the eastern foot of the hill on which the village used to stand, a settlement was established in the site as early as the

Byzantine era The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World (, also or ; 'Roman year since the creation of the universe', abbreviated as ε.Κ.), was the calendar used by the Eastern Orth ...

. Pottery, glassware and coins allowed the researchers to date this settlement to a short period between roughly 375 to 425 CE. The excavation has revealed remains of what may be a storehouse, with many broken wine jars. The structure included a drainage system that collected water from its roof to somewhere beyond the excavation limits. The region is abundant with water and thus the hill serves as a good place for settlement. Elie Haddad who headed the excavation suggested that this abundance of water is hinted in the name of the village, "the fig tree", as it requires a large supply of water to grow. The identity of the Byzantine inhabitants remains unknown and based on the study, the site remained unsettled until the Ottoman period. Al-Tina was incorporated into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in 1517 with all of

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers under the name of ''Safiriyya'', as being in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'' ("subdistrict") of Gaza, which was part of

Gaza Sanjak Gaza Sanjak (), known in Arabic as Bilād Ghazza (the Land of Gaza), was a sanjak of the Damascus Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire centered in Gaza, and spread northwards up to the Yarkon River. In the 16th century it was divided into ''nawahi'' ...

. It had a population of 10 households; an estimated 55 persons, who were all

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. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, sesame, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 4,350 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 143Khalidi, 1992, p. 416 In 1838, it was noted as a Muslim village, ''el Letineh'', in the Gaza District. In 1851–52, van de Velde noted many old stone laying about the village. In 1863

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...

found a population is four hundred souls. He further noted some antique stones which were scattered in the

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

or have been placed around the opening of the

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. An Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed that ''tine'' had 96 houses and a population of 277, though the population count included men, only.Socin, 1879, p
162
/ref> In 1882, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described it as an ordinary

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

village, with a

to the south.

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, ''Tineh'' had a population of 396, all Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p
21
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 530, still all Muslims, in a total of 131 houses.Mills, 1932, p
23
'Abd al-Fattah Humud (1933-1968), one of the founding members of

Fatah Fatah ( ; ), formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (), is a Palestinian nationalist and Arab socialist political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and ...

, was born in the village. In the 1945 statistics the village had a population of 750 Muslims, with 7,001 dunams of land. Of this, 141 dunams were used for citrus and bananas, 5,639 for cereals, while 24 dunams were classified as built-up areas. An elementary school was founded in 1946 and it had an initial enrollment of 67 students. Idhnibba 1948

1948 and aftermath

Al-Tina was depopulated during the

on July 8, 1948, by the Givati Brigade under Operation An-Far.Morris, 2004, p.
443
/ref> In 1992 the village site was described: "The village has been completely effaced. Next to the site is a wide area, overgrown with bushes and thorns, that is fenced in on the southern side. An orange grove is planted on the northern and western edges of the site. A highway that runs east-west passes to the south, and a railway line passes by about 100 meters to the east." In July–August 2016 a trial excavation took place in the eastern side of the hill. It was the first archaeological excavation in the site and was headed by Elie Haddad on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The excavation took place ahead of the construction of an access road to the Kiryat Mal'akhi – Yoav railway station which was under construction at the time. 9 excavation squares were opened.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Welcome To al-Tina al-Tina
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16:
IAAWikimedia commons

from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Ramla