Sheikh Badr

For the Syrian city, see Ash-Shaykh Badr.

Sheikh Badr
Sheikh Badr house, 2008
Sheikh Badr
Arabic	شيخ بدر
District	Jerusalem
Coordinates	31°46′20.1″N 35°11′50.04″E
Population
Area
Date of depopulation
Cause(s) of depopulation

Sheikh Badr (Arabic: شيخ بدر‎) was an Arab suburb village on a hilltop in west Jerusalem.

History

The village was depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War. According to British intelligence, the Haganah ordered the residents to leave on January 14, 1948. During the British Mandate of Palestine it was part of the Jerusalem municipality. A temporary burial ground for Israelis who died during the siege on Jerusalem was established there. After the establishment of the State of Israel, the area was renamed Givat Ram.^{[citation needed]} The Israeli parliament building, the Knesset, was built on the site.

Archeological findings

Archaeological excavations in the area formerly known as Sheikh Badr indicate that the site was inhabited from Iron Age II to the Byzantine period (late 8th century BCE to early 7th century CE). Meager finds from the Ummayad, Abbasid and Mamluk periods do not indicate any permanent occupation after the mid-7th century. The strategic location at the top of the ascent from the coastal plain (or descent for those leaving the Old City of Jerusalem) may explain the long period of settlement in this area. Digs were carried out in 1949, 1968 and 1992-1993.

See also

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict

References

Bibliography

• Conder, Claude Reignier and H.H. Kitchener (1881): The Survey of Western Palestine: memoirs of the topography, orography, hydrography, and archaeology. London:Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. vol 3
• Hadawi, Sami (1970), Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html 
• 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 
• Morris, Benny (2004), The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521009677, 9780521009676