Dayr Muhaysin (, ) 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 ...

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 ...

, located 12 km southeast 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 ...

and 4 km west of Latrun. It was depopulated during the

1948 Palestine war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the Stat ...

History

It has been suggested by the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' that Dayr Muhaysin was one of the Crusader villages which was given by the 12th century King Baldwin V as a

fief A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal alle ...

to the

Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchat ...

.Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p
11
/ref>

Ottoman era

In 1838, it was noted as a

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 ...

village in the southern part of the Er-Ramleh area.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
120
/ref> 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 village of some twenty half destroyed and deserted houses, under a large mimosa tree. The village was mentioned in an official Ottoman village list from around 1870, showing it had 10 houses and a population of 29, though the population count included men only. In 1883, the "Survey of Western Palestine" found at Dayr Muhaysin: "Traces of a former village; a conspicuous white mound, with

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

s and caves; a large site, also known as Umm esh Shukf."Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p
274
/ref>

British Mandate era

In the

1931 census of Palestine The 1931 census of Palestine was the second census carried out by the authorities of Mandatory Palestine. It was carried out on 18 November 1931 under the direction of Major E. Mills after the 1922 census of Palestine. * Census of Palestine 1931, ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Deir Muheisin'' had a population of 113; all Muslims, in a total of 28 houses.Mills, 1932, p
19
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, the village had a population of 460 Muslims, while the total land area was 10,008

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 (equivalent to the Greek stremma or English/American

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

), according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 45 dunams were plantations or irrigated, 7,909 for

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

s, while 72 dunams were classified as built-up public areas. Khulda 1942

1947–1948 war, and aftermath

In December 1947 the village was evacuated. The Jewish

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

paramilitary force paved an alternative route from Al-Masmiyya to Latrun, in order not to pass through the Palestinian Arab city of

but the alternative route passed near the village. In the first month of the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine there were attacks on Jewish transportation. In these attacks two high Jewish commanders were killed and according to Israeli historian Yoav Gelber, fear from acts of revenge led the villagers to temporarily evacuate. The village was captured on April 6, 1948, during Operation Nachshon. The operational orders were to treat all Arab villages on the Khulda – Jerusalem corridor as "enemy assembly of jump off places", and such villages were to be destroyed and the villagers expelled. Dayr Muhaysin, Khulda and Saydun were the three first target villages.Gelber, 2006, p. 100 In 1951, the Israeli settlement of Beko'a was established on village land, northwest of the village site.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Welcome To Dayr Muhaysin Dayr Muhaysin
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 20
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