Bayt Jirja
| Bayt Jirja | |
 Bayt Jirja
|
|
| Arabic | بيت جرجه |
| Also Spelled | Beit Jirja |
| Sub-district | Gaza |
| Coordinates | 31°36′11.24″N 34°34′51.25″E / 31.6031222°N 34.5809028°ECoordinates: 31°36′11.24″N 34°34′51.25″E / 31.6031222°N 34.5809028°E |
| Population | 940 (1945) |
| Area | |
| Date of depopulation | date unknown,[1] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | |
| Current localities | None |
Bayt Jirja (Arabic: بيت جرجه) was a Palestinian Arab village 15.5 km Northeast of Gaza. In 1931 the village consisted of 115 houses. It was overrun by Israeli forces during operation Yo'av in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Bayt Jirja was found abandoned in the November 1948 clean up sweeps to expel any partial inhabited villages and destroy village housing to prevent any possible re-occupation in the area.[2] The village was completely destroyed after the occupation and only one tomb remains.
Contents |
[edit] History
Bayt Jirja contained the archaeological site of Khirbat 'Amuda, which was known to the Crusades as Amouhde, and it contained pottery fragments, cisterns, and a pool.[3] Excavation at Khirbat 'Amuda in 2005 yielded coins and pottery fragments from the Byzantine and early Islamic period.[4]
The Arab geographer Yaqut, writing in the 1220s, called the village for "Jirja", and said it was the birthplace of Abu al-Fadl al-Jirja, at one time the major authority in Palestine on hadith.[3] In 1596, Bayt Jirja (erroneously named "Bayt Kharja") was part of the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Gaza under the liwa' (district) of Gaza, and it had a population of 468. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley and fruit trees, as well as on goats and beehives.[5]
Sometime after this the village must have been destroyed, as a marble slab at the entrance to the yard of the village mosque proclaim that Abdullah Pasha of Acre, via his delegate Mohammed Shahin, had rebuilt the village in 1825-26.[6]
In the late nineteenth century, Bayt Jirja was described as small, with gardens, and supplied with water from cisterns and a pond.[7]
The villagers were Muslim, and they kept a shrine, located on the eastern edge and overlooking Wadi al-Abd, and which they believed to be the tomb of "prophet" (nabi) Jirja. An elementary school was established in the center of village in 1932, and it had 67 students in the mid 1940s. The village center also contained some small shops. There were a number of wells, ranging in depth from 30 to 80 meters, which supplied drinking and irrigation water. In 1944/45 a total of 434 dunums was used for citrus and bananas. 6,911 dunums were used for cereals, and 618 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.[3]
[edit] 1948 War
According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, what remained of the village in 1992 was:
The site is encircled by barbed wire fencing, with only the street and scattered rubble still visible. One house on the northern edge of the village remains, along with some sycamore trees and cactuses. Some village lands are cultivated, while others are covered by woods.[3]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #312, gives both date and cause of depopulation as "Not known"
- ^ Morris, 2004 village #312, pp 517-518
- ^ a b c d Khalidi, 1992, p.88
- ^ Nahshoni (2008): Khirbat ‘Amuda Final Report
- ^ Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter and Kamal Abdulfattah (1977), Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. p. 145. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p.88
- ^ Sharon, 1999, 143, p.144
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, III:259. Also quoted in Khalidi, p.88
[edit] 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 978-0-521-00967-6. http://books.google.com/?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=benny+morris&q.
- Nahshoni, Pirhiya (2008): Khirbat ‘Amuda Final Report Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel, No. 120.
- Sharon, Moshe (1999), Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, Vol. II, B-C, BRILL, ISBN 978-90-04-11083-0, http://books.google.com/?id=EPFDU8POrXIC(Bayt Jirja p 143-144) ISBN 90-04-11083-6,
