Al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya

Al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya
Arabic
Sub-district	Gaza
Population	1030 (1945)
Area
Date of depopulation	May 18, 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Fear of being caught up in the fighting
Current localities	Merkaz Shappira, Massu'ot Yitzchaq, 'En Tzurim

Al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya was a Palestinian Arab village in the District of Gaza. It was depopulated during the 1948 War on May 18, 1948, during the second stage of Operation Barak. It was located 30 km northeast of Gaza.

A 1596 census revealed a population of 237. By 1945, this had increased to 1,030. al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya had shared a school with the other two Sawafir villages, and in 1945 it had an enrollment of about 280.

Bibliography

• Baumgarten, Ya‘aqov (1/1/2005): Es-Sawafir el-Gharbiya Final Report, Hadashot Arkheologiyot, no.117
• Guérin, M. V. (1869): Description géographique, historique et archéologique de la Palestine. Judee II, (p.82 )
• 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 978-0-521-00967-6, http://books.google.com/?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=benny+morris&q
• Nasser, Gamal Abdul (1955/1973): "Memoirs" in Journal of Palestine Studies
  • " “Memoirs of the First Palestine War” in 2, no. 2 (Win. 73): 3-32, pdf-file, downloadable

External links

• Welcome To al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya
• al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center