Bayt Mahsir

Bayt Mahsir
Panorama from west, 2008
Bayt Mahsir
Arabic
Sub-district	Jerusalem
Coordinates	31°47′39.70″N 35°02′04.75″E
Population	2400 (1945)
Area	16,268 dunums
Date of depopulation	May 10–11, 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Beyt Me'ir., Mesillat Tziyyon

Bayt Mahsir was a Palestinian Arab village in the District of Jerusalem. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on May 10, 1948 by the Har'el Brigade of Operation Makkabi. It was located 9 km west of Jerusalem.

In 1945, the village had a population of 2,400. Bayt Mahsir had three schools; two schools for boys and an elementary school for girls. Bayt Mahsir contains a number of Khirbat including: al-Huwaytiyya, al-Masi, Khatula, and al-Sallam.

Town Today

According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the village remaining structures on the village land are: "Several village houses have been spared, and are for the most part interspersed among the houses of the settlement of Beit Meir. Two large, rectangular-shaped, almost identical houses built of limestone rise above the Israeli settlement's cabin-like residences. The remains of a flour mill, a metal machine with flywheels fitted over a stone structure, can still be seen. There is a wild forest of old trees on the eastern edge of the village site, on top of the mountain. The tomb of al-' Ajami, together with other graves, are among the trees."

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 p. p.16.
• 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.
• al-Qawuqji, Fauzi (1972): Memoirs of al-Qawuqji, Fauzi in Journal of Palestine Studies
  • "Memoirs, 1948, Part I" in 1, no. 4 (Sum. 72): 27-58., dpf-file, downloadable
  • "Memoirs, 1948, Part II" in 2, no. 1 (Aut. 72): 3-33., dpf-file, downloadable

External links

• Welcome To Bayt Mahsir
• Bayt Mahsir, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center