PalestineRemembered About Us Oral History العربية
Menu Pictures Zionist FAQs Haavara Maps
PalestineRemembered.com Satellite View Search Donate Contact Us Looting 101 The Home of Palestinians العربية
About Us Zionist FAQs Conflict 101 Pictures Maps Oral History Haavara Facts Not Lies Zionism 101 Zionist Quotes

Welcome To al-Khisas - الخصاص (אל-ח'צאץ)

District of Safad
Ethnically cleansed days ago
العربية

Google Earth
Picture for al-Khisas Village - Palestine: : All that remains from the mill -- Yousef Odeh
 Gallery (59)
Statistic & Fact Value
Occupation Date May 25, 1948
Distance From District 31 (km) North East of Safad
Elevation 100 (meters)
Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Detailswhat's new
Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction
Map Location See location #7 on the map

View from satellite
Military Operation Operation Yiftach (commanded by the ethnic cleansing champion Yigal Allon)
Attacking Units The Palmach's First Battalion
Acts of Terror Based on a New York Times report on the 18th of December 1947, 10 people were killed including 5 children, and some victims were buried in the wreckage of their houses. Yigal Anon approved this terror act to be executed by the Haganah.
Exodus Cause Haganah 'Wispering' campaign (psychological warfare)
Village Temains The village has been completely destroyed, and only house rubble left behind.
Ethnically Cleansing al-Khisas was ethnicaly cleansed as a result of psychological warfare conducted on the 25th of May 1948.
Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership
Ethnic Group Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab 1,480
Jewish 2,738
Public 577
**Total 4,795
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
**Town Lands' Demarcation Maps
Land Usage
As of 1945
Land Usage Arab (Dunum)* Jewish (Dunum)*
Irrigated & Plantation 1,438 2,728
Built up 30 20
Arable 1,438 2,728
Non-Arable 589 0
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Population
Year Population*
1931 386
1945 530 (60 Jewish)
1948 545 (60 Jewish)
Est. Refugees 1998 3,348
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Number of Houses
Year Number of Houses
1931 73
1948 103
Near By Townswhat's new
al-Sanbariyya
↑
(N)
al-Manshiyya  ←
al-Khisas
→   al-Mansura
            ↙
al-Zuq al-Tahtani
↓
Qaytiyya
↘           
al-'Abisiyya
Shrines / Maqams A shrine of local sage known by al-Shaykh 'Ali
Nearby Wadies & Rivers The village was situated on the western banks Wadi al-Hasibani.
Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands		 ha-Gosherim
Featured Video

Village Before Nakba

The village was located in the northern part of the al-Hula Plain, on a natural terrace that was about 100 m wide. This terrace had been formed thousands of years earlier when the ancient Lake al-Hula (which once filled the entire al-Hula Basin) shrank. Wadi al-Hasibani passed by the western part of al-Khisas, cutting a trough through the mountains. Al-Khisas was linked by a secondary road to a highway leading to Safad and Tiberias and by a similar road to a neighboring village. The Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1228) described al-Khisas as falling within the administrative jurisdiction of Banyas in Syria (today occupied by Israel). In 1945 the village had an Arab population of 400 Muslims and 70 Christians. Agriculture was its principal economic activity. Fruit orchards were tended south of the village, along the al-Hasibani River, while olive trees grew on the west side. In 1944145 a total of 1,438 dunums was irrigated or used for orchards. Evidence that the village site had been inhabited before 1900 includes the nearby shrine of a Shaykh 'Ali and rock-hewn tombs.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

Al-Khisas was the target of a Haganah hit-and-run attack in the very first weeks of the war. On 18 December 1947, members of a Haganah strike force raided the village under cover of night, driving through the village, firing their guns, and throwing bombs. Several houses were blown up and about a dozen civilians (including 4 children) were killed, according to figures cited by Israeli historian Benny Morris. A New York Times report put the number of dead at 10, including 5 children, and added that some victims were buried in the wreckage of their houses. (The Haganah initially denied that children were killed, but a spokesman later admitted the fact.) The newspaper story stated that the attack was in revenge for the killing of two men from the Jewish Settlement Police in the Safad area.

Morris states that some local Haganah intelligence officers and civilian leaders initially opposed the planned 'retaliatory' operation, but it was approved by the Palmach commanding officer, Yigal Allon. A few days later, a Haganah spokesman said that one of the dynamited houses had been a base for Syrian and Lebanese forces, adding: 'It is very unfortunate that children should have been sleeping in that sort of smallscale military center and should have fallen victims to that kind of attack.' An assessment of the al-Khisas attack was made during a high-level meeting of Zionist military and civilian officials on 1-2 January 1948. Morris summarizes what seems to have been the majority view at the meeting (attended by Jewish Agency chairman David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan, then a relatively junior Arab affairs expert): 'However unpleasant, the use of force, even if occasionally excessive, was in the long run fruitful.'

According to Morris, the villagers fled al-Khisas on 25 May 1948, some five months after the Haganah attack, at the very end of Operation Yiftach (see Abil al-Qamh, Safad sub-disctrict). An Israeli intelligence report credited their dispersal to the campaign of psychological warfare launched during that operation. But the exodus was evidently partial, for some villagers remained in their homes for just over a year afterwards, until they were forcibly ousted by the Israeli army. At midnight on 5 June 1949, the village was surrounded by trucks and the villagers were forced into the trucks 'with kicks, curses and maltreatment,' in the words of a Mapam Knesset member quoted by Morris. The villagers said that they had been 'forced with their hands to destroy their dwellings,' and had been treated like 'cattle.' They were then dumped on a bare, sunscorched hillside near the village of 'Akbara where they were left 'wandering in the wilderness, thirsty and hungry.' They lived there under inhuman conditions for years afterwards, along with the inhabitants of at least two other villages (Qaddita and al-Ja'una) expelled in the same circumstances.

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

The settlement of ha-Gosherim (208291), established in 1948 before the villagers of al-Khisas were expelled, is a few hundred meters south of the village site, on village land.

Village Today

Most of the village land is covered with woods and grass. There are scattered cactuses and some piles of stones, as well as the remains of an old building and a large arched stone barrage. The village lands are cultivated by the settlement of ha-Gosherim.

Source

Dr. Walid al-Khalidi, 1992: All That Remains.
Related Maps Town Lands' Demarcation Maps
خرائط للقضاء توضح حدود القرى والاودية
Town's map on MapQuest
View from satellite
Help us map this town at WikiMapia
Related Links Wikipedia's Page
Google Search
Google For Images
Google For Videos
More Information في كتاب كي لا ننسى
في كتاب بلادنا فلسطين
المزيد من موقع هوية

Bibliography and References

Want to browse more? 80,000 pictures were grouped in these gallaries:

Display Name Clan/Hamolah Country of Residence
Mahdi Abduallh - Palestine
okasha salman -
Ismail Abdullah - Bekaa, Lebanon
All Registered Members
Fake Valor: Why Did Zionist Jews Hoist Nazis Flag on Their Ships in the 1930s?

What is new?