Welcome To al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya - السوافير الشرقية (א-סואפיר א-שרקיה)

District of Gaza Ethnically cleansed days ago	العربية Google Earth
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Statistic & Fact

Value

Occupation Date

May 18, 1948

Distance From District

32 (km) North East of Gaza

Elevation

50 (meters)

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details

Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction

Map Location

See location #12 on the map

View from satellite

Military Operation

Second stage of Operation Barak

Attacking Units

Possibly Giva'ti Brigade

Exodus Cause

Fear of Jewish attack, or of being caught in the fighting

Village Temains

The village has been completely defaced.

Ethnically Cleansing

al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership

Ethnic Group	Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab	13,200
Jewish	103
Public	528
**Total	13,831

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

Land Usage
As of 1945

Land Usage	Arab (Dunum)*	Jewish (Dunum)*
Citrus Groves	930	0
Irrigated & Plantation	386	0
Planted W/ Cereal	11,821	103
Built up	40	0
Arable	13,137	103
Non-Arable	551	0

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Population

Year	Population*
1922	588
1931	787
1945	970
1948	1,125
Est. Refugees 1998	6,910

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Number of Houses

Year	Number of Houses
1931	148
1948	211

Near By Towns

Bayt Daras ↖	al-Sawafir al-Shamaliyya ↑ (N)	Qastina ↗
al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya ←	al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya	→ al-Jaladiyya
↙ 'Ibdis	↓ Bayt 'Affa	↘ Hatta

Schools

The village shared a school with the other two Sawafir villages, and it had an enrollment of about 280 in 1945.

Places of Warship

One mosque

Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands

'En Tzurim, Deganim, Shafir, Zerachya, and Nir Banim.

Village Before Nakba

The village was situated on the coastal plain on the east, just south of the highway to al-Majdal and Gaza (to the southwest) and Ramla and Jerusalem (to the northeast). The adjectival al-Sharqiyya ('eastern') distinguished it from the two other neighboring villages with the same first name, al-Sawafir. Together they formed an approximately right-angled triangle, with a northwest-southeast hypotenuse. In 1596, al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya was a village in the nahiya of Gaza (liwa' of Gaza). It paid taxes on vineyards, as well as on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, fruit, and cotton.

In the late nineteenth century, the village of al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya had several small gardens and wells. The population was Muslim. Village houses were built of adobe, although a few were of stone. The village had a mosque, and the school it shared with the other two villages had an enrollment of about 280 students by the mid-1940s. Agriculture, which was mainly rainfed, constituted the backbone of the economy. Grain, citrus, grapes, and apricots were grown. In 1944/45 a total of 930 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 11,821 dunums were allotted to cereals; 386 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

Units of the Giv'ati Brigade occupied the village during the second stage of Operation Barak, according to two separate Israeli sources. Israeli historian Benny Morris says that the operation was launched on 9 May 1948, and the village was occupied on 18 May, by which time most of the inhabitants had fled; but some were probably expelled. An Egyptian source differs sharply with this account, stating that the village was occupied 'about a fortnight after the beginning of the "[first]" truce,' or around 25 June. That information is contained in an account by the late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, in which he criticizes the Egyptian command for having allowed Israeli forces to occupy this position during the truce. Abdel Nasser's own battalion, the Sixth, was ordered to recapture the village at the end of the truce (9 July), but its men were never able to act on their orders because of the failure of a Sudanese unit to occupy Bayt Daras. Meanwhile, Abdel Nasser, as staff officer of his battalion, had decided to reconnoitre the sites of al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya and its sister village al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya. Accompanied by two officers and two sergeants, he spent half a day behind enemy lines to get a clear view of the villages. As he had anticipated, the enemy presence was not great at the villages, but the information gathered by the reconnaissance unit was not put to use, because the Egyptian advance was held up at Bayt Daras.

The Israeli army's account of battles on this front maintains that the Egyptian-Sudanese plan entailed the capture of Bayt Daras followed by an advance on al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya and that the Arab forces tried but failed to gain control of the village in early July. Another Arab plan which ultimately targeted the village was foiled in its early stages over the next two days.

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

Settlements in the region of the three villages have been difficult to place accurately due to numerous name changes, but it is clear that four settlements were established on the lands of al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya. En Tzurim, which was apparently joined by settlers from Deganim, was built on the village site in 1949. Shafir was built in 1949, and Zerachya in 1950. Nir Banim was established farther to the east in 1954.

Village Today

No village houses remain on the site. New buildings stand on the spot where the mosque used to be. Some traces of the former village are still present on the surrounding lands, however. There is a building for a water-pump in Isma'il al-Sawafiri's orchard, an old sycamore tree in the al-Buhaysi family's orchard, and an old cypress tree in an otherwise vacant field.

Source

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

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Nakba Oral History Interview with Ramadan al-Biheisei

Display Name	Clan/Hamolah	Country of Residence
Ghaida Hamdan	Hamdan	AB, Canada
نادر جوده	جوده	ميونخ, المانيا
عبود	عثمان-جوده	غزه, غزه
reem	جوده	القاهره
رمضان البحيصي	البحيصي	عمان-الاردن
حازم حازم	العمصي	رفح, السوافير
بهاء	عثمان	قينا, النمسا
نوح	عثمان/جوده	جيزان, السعوديه
محمد جمال عبدالقادر البحيصي	-	-
طلعت محمود جودة	عثمان/جودة	غزة
محمد حنون	-	-
Mohammed El-Amassi	العمصي	Berlin, Germany
أحمد جابر محمود العمصي	العمصي	غزة, غزة
عماد العمصي	العمصي	عمان, الاردن
nasser	Hamdan	Oxford
علي طلب البحيصي	البحيصي	الأردن
مصطفى سعيد البحيصي	-	رام الله-عين عريك
أبوصقر	-	الرياض, السعودية
imanbhisi	البحيصي	amman, jordan
dina buhaisi	buhaisi	amman
مجد عثمان	العثامنه(جوده)	ابو ظبي
dana al-buheissi	buheissi	-
م/ رمزي جادالله العمصي	العمصي	غزة , فلسطين
Khalil Ibrahim Zeidan	Al Buheissi	Gaza
Zahir Al-Buheissi	-	australia
زيدان عبدالهادي البحيصي	البحيصي	جدة, السعودية
ابو عبد الله	-	-
tarek	hamdan	\devon, UK
مصطفى احمد	-	-
ReVoLuTiOnIsT iMpRoR	al 3asforey	middle camps, palestine
الوحدات	صباح	فلسطين, قفين
abu halid	mosleh el wer	sarajevo, bosnia

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