Sirin, Baysan
| Sirin | |
| Arabic | سرين |
| Also Spelled | Sereen |
| Sub-district | Baysan |
| Population | 810[1] (1945) |
| Area | 28,445[1] dunums
28.4 km² |
| Date of depopulation | April 6, 1948[2] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Abandonment on Arab orders |
Sirin Arabic: سرين was a Palestinian Arab village located 17 kilometers (11 mi) north of Beisan. First evacuated in April 1948 on Arab orders, by June 1948, some of the inhabitants had returned. Permanently depopulated by Israeli troops in the summer of 1948, Sirin was then completely destroyed. Only the village cemetery and one house remain standing, along with the remains of a mosaic pavement and a vaulted spring dating to the Byzantine period. Mentioned in historical documents, the 1596 census indicated it had 22 people; by 1945, this had risen to 810.
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[edit] History
Like other villages in Palestine, Sirin fell under the rule of the Ottoman Empire between 1517 and 1918. In 1596, Sirin formed part of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jenin under the liwa' ("district") of Lajjun, with a population of 22. Villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, as well as on goats and beehives.[3]
James Silk Buckingham, who visited the village in the early 19th century, transcribes its name as "Sereen" and describes it as being made up of about thirty to forty houses with half a dozen Bedouin tents located close to it.[4] In the latter half of the same century, the village of Sirin was described as being surrounded by hedges of prickly pear, with about 100 inhabitants who cultivated 35 faddans of land.[5]
Sirin was one of the first of approximately two dozen villages that were evacuated on Arab orders in April-May 1948 for "pre-invasion military reasons."[6] Ilan Pappe writes that the village was occupied by Jewish troops on May 12, 1948.[7] When Israeli troops entered Sirin in June 1948, they found it still had about 100 inhabitants. After checking their IDs and searching for weapons (finding only some knives), the troops left the village. A report from the battalion's intelligence officer recommended, "the Arabs should be ejected from the area, the young men should be arrested, and the crops confiscated ..."[8] Sirin, along with the villages of Hadatha, 'Ulam, and Ma'dhar, were all permanently depopulated by Israeli troops in the summer of 1948.[9]
Walid Khalidi described all that was left of the village structures of Sirin in 1994: "The cemetery and one house (which serves as a storage room for straw) are all that remain of Sirin. Stone rubble surrounded by clusters of cactuses can be seen on the site. The site itself is used as a stockyard for cattle. The spring in the middle of the site is covered with a stone structure. Some of the land around the village is planted in cotton."[10]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Hadawi, 1970, p. 44.
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. xvii, village #108 Also gives cause of depopulation.
- ^ 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. 157. Quoted in Khalidi (1992), p. 60
- ^ Buckingham, 1821, p. 449. Also cited in Khalidi, p. 60.
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, SWP, 1881, II p.86. Quoted in Khalidi, p. 60.
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. 76-77.
- ^ Pappe, 2006, p. 105.
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. 261.
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. 308, footnote # 806.
- ^ Khalidi, 1994, p. 60.
[edit] Bibliography
- Buckingham, James Silk (1821): Travels in Palestine Through the Countries of Bashan and Gilead, East of the River Jordan, Including a Visit to the Cities of Geraza and Gamala in the Decapolis
- 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 2
- Guérin, M. V. (1880): Description Géographique, Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine. Galilee 1 part. p 136 )
- 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/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20I/Baysan/Page-044.jpg
- 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 0-521-00967-7, 9780521009676
- Pappé, Ilan (2006), The ethnic cleansing of Palestine (Illustrated, reprint ed.), Oneworld, ISBN 1-85168-467-0, 9781851684670
[edit] External links
