Welcome To Dimra - دمره (דימרה)

District of Gaza Ethnically cleansed days ago	العربية Google Earth
	Gallery (18)

Statistic & Fact

Value

Occupation Date

October 28, 1948

Distance From District

12 (km) North East of Gaza

Elevation

50 (meters)

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details

Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction

Pre-Nakba Aerial View

Map Location

See location #41 on the map

View from satellite

Military Operation

Operation Yo'av

Attacking Units

Possibly Giva'ti Brigade

Defenders

Egyptian Army

Exodus Cause

Military assault by Zionist troops

Village Temains

The village was completely destroyed, and only house rubble left behind.

Ethnically Cleansing

Dimra inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership

Ethnic Group	Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab	8,257
Jewish	0
Public	235
**Total	8,492

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
**Town Lands' Demarcation Maps

Land Usage
As of 1945

Land Usage	Arab (Dunum)*
Citrus Groves	96
Irrigated & Plantation	388
Planted W/ Cereal	7,412
Built up	18
Arable	7,896
Non-Arable	578

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Population

Year	Population*
1922	251
1931	324
1945	520
1948	603
Est. Refugees 1998	3,704

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Number of Houses

Year	Number of Houses
1931	100
1948	186

Near By Towns

Dayr Sunayd ↖	Bayt Jirja ↑ (N)	Simsim ↗
	Dimra	→ Najd
↙ Bayt Lahiya	↓ Bayt Hanun	↘ Huj

Schools

Dimra had one elementary school for boys which was founded in 1946, and when it opened its doors it had initial enrollment of 47 students.

Inhabitants Place of Origin

In 15th century, Dimra was the home of the Bani Jabir tribe.

Archeological Sites

Dimra contained the foundations of buildings, a cemetery, columns, and severed column capitals.

Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands

Erez

Village Before Nakba

The village stood on the southern coastal plain, on a site that had distinctive, red-brown soil. It was linked by a short secondary road to the main coastal highway and by other secondary roads to neighboring villages. The coastal railway line passed a short distance to the west of it. Dimra appears to have been occupied in the twelfth century; ruins identified as Crusader in origin have been noted in the village. Al-Qalqashandi, an encyclopedic Arab scholar who died in AD. 1418 wrote that Dimra was the home of the Bani Jabir, an Arab tribe. The American biblical scholar Edward Robinson reported passing by Dimra in 1838; he said it was situated near the bend of a valley. The population of the village was Muslim. The center of the village was located at the perpendicular intersection of two main streets. The village expanded during the Mandate period, and houses were built eastward and southward along the roads that led to other villages. Dimra had an elementary school that was opened in 1946 with an initial enrollment of forty-seven students. Its agricultural land was often threatened by the movement of coastal sand dunes. Wells outside the village of depths of 20 to 25 m were found mainly at the bottoms of gullies that ran into Wadi al-Hasi, the winter of which floods fed the underground aquifers. These wells provided irrigation water for cultivation. In 1944/45 a total of 96 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 7,412 dunums were allocated to cereals; 388 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. The village contained the foundations of buildings, a cemetery, columns, and severed column capitals. Two other ruins with a variety of relics lay on its land.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

As early as 16 February, the Jaffa-based Palestinian daily Filastin reported that a Jewish convoy drove through Dimra, firing at villagers. The villagers reportedly returned the fire. On 31 May, the inhabitants of a nearby village, Huj, were expelled to Dimra. Israeli historian Benny Morris states that they were repeatedly prevented from returning, indicating that they remained in Dimra.

It is difficult to determine the exact date of occupation for Dimra, but it was probably occupied in the later stages of the Israeli army's Operation Yoav in October–November 1948. It may have been seized on 28 October, with the withdrawal of Egyptian forces along the coastal road, or on 4–5 November, in the wake of the occupation of al-Majdal.

On 22 October, the New York Times correspondent reported on the situation on the southern front. Arab village after village lay deserted,' he wrote, 'some battered beyond repair and still burning where the Egyptians had held out. From all, however, whether destroyed or not, the Arabs had fled to the coastal strip still in Egyptian hands.'

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

The settlement of Erez was founded in 1949 on part of the village site.

Village Today

Most of the village site is fenced in and used as a pasture. A crumbling stone water basin, concrete rubble from houses, and a destroyed well are nearly all that remain. A watering trough for cows has been placed on what appears to be a concrete fragment from a former house. The well is topped with an old, nonoperating water pump. More debris lies in a wooded portion of the site, near a Jewish cemetery. Some cactuses that formerly served as fences, as well as shrubs and thorny plants, grow on the adjacent lands.

Source

Dr. Walid al-Khalidi, 1992: All That Remains.

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

Pre-Nakba Aerial view of the village / صورة من الجو للقرية اخذت قبل النكبة

Display Name	Clan/Hamolah	Country of Residence
نوح البرعي	-	غزة
abu ibrahim	abu-ghanem	gaza
shady okasha	-	Gaza, Palestine
أبو نوفل	الصيفي	غزة
أبو خالد	الصيفى	غزه
Hussein Elburai	Elburai	ON, Canada

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