Al-Khayma ( ar, الخيمة) was a
Palestinian Arab village in the
Ramle Subdistrict of
Mandatory Palestine. It was depopulated during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
on July 9, 1948, by the
Givati Brigade
The 84th "Givati" Brigade ( he, חֲטִיבַת גִּבְעָתִי, , "Hill Brigade" or "Highland Brigade") is an Israel Defense Forces infantry brigade. Until 2005, the Brigade used to be stationed within the Gaza Strip and primarily perf ...
of
Operation An-Far. It was located 18.5 km south of
Ramla.
History
In 1863,
Victor Guérin found that it had two hundred and fifty inhabitants.
In 1882, the
PEF PEF, PeF, or Pef may stand for the following abbreviations:
* Palestine Exploration Fund
* Peak expiratory flow
* PEF Private University of Management Vienna
* Pentax raw file (see Raw image format)
* Perpetual Education Fund
* Perpetual Emigratio ...
's ''
Survey of Western Palestine'' noted it as principally an
adobe
Adobe ( ; ) 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 used to refer to any kind of e ...
village of "on low ground", and with a
well to the east.
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 divisi ...
, conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, ''Khaimeh'' had a population of 132 Muslims,
[Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p]
21
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 141 Muslims, in 30 houses.[Mills, 1932, p]
21
/ref>
In the 1945 statistics, the village had a population of 190, all Muslim,[ and the total land area was 5,150 ]dunums
A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...
.[ Of this, 4 dunams were irrigated or used for plantations, 5,007 were used for cereals, while 9 dunams were classified as built-up urban areas.
]
1948 and aftermath
Morris list both date and reason for depopulation as "not known".[ However, he also notes it in connection with Operation An-Far, in mid July 1948.
Following the 1948 war, the area was incorporated into the ]State of Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and in August 1948 al-Khaymas was one of 21 Palestinian villages whose land was proposed for resettlement with an Israeli village named Revadim. In November, 1948, the proposal to establish Revadim on al-Khayma's land was passed.
Revadim was eventually established close to village land, according to Morris, however, according to Khalidi, Revadim is located north of al-Khayma, on the land of the depopulated Palestinian village of al-Mukhayzin
Al-Mukhayzin was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on April 20, 1948, by the Givati Brigade of Operation Har'el. It was located 10 km southwest of ...
.[Khalidi, 1992, p. 388]
In 1992 the village site was described: "All that remains of the village are three mounds to the east, west, and south of the site that contain the remnants of houses. A girder protrudes from the eastern mound and there is a large, deserted well at the mounds centre. A large artificial pond lies about 100 m northeast of the site, and there is a monument next to a well about 0.5 km to the north. An inscription on the monument reads: To the eMemory of the Members of Kibbutz Revadim, who Settled on the Land in 1948."[Khalidi, 1992, pp. 388-389]
References
Bibliography
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External links
Welcome To al-Khayma
al-Khayma
Zochrot
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16:
IAA
Wikimedia 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