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Welcome To 'Ayn Ghazal - عين غزال (עין ע'זאל)

District of Haifa
Ethnically cleansed days ago
العربية

Google Earth
Picture for 'Ayn Ghazal Village - Palestine: : Let us see how the most
Gallery (236)
Statistic & Fact Value
Occupation Date July 24, 1948
Distance From District 21 (km) South of Haifa
Elevation 100 (meters)
Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Detailswhat's new
Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction
Map Location See location #20 on the map

View from satellite
Military Operation Operation Shoter (Police)
Attacking Units A special unit drawn from the Golani, Carmeli, and Alexandroni brigades.
Defenders Local Arab militia and some ALA volunteers
Acts of Terror The killing and burning of 25 to 30 of the village defenders, and also in September 1948, UN investigators stated that 130 villagers were unaccounted for.
Refugees' Migration Routes 'Ayn Ghazal inhabitants were mostly expelled eastward to Jinin (West Bank).
Exodus Cause Military assault by Zionist troops
Village Temains The village has been mostly destroyed with the exception of the village shrine.
Ethnically Cleansing 'Ayn Ghazal inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.
Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership
Ethnic Group Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab 14,628
Jewish 424
Public 3,027
**Total 18,079
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
**Town Lands' Demarcation Maps
Land Usage
As of 1945
Land Usage Arab (Dunum)* Jewish (Dunum)*
Irrigated & Plantation 1,486 0
Olive Groves 1,400 0
Planted W/ Cereal 8,472 424
Built up 130 0
Arable 9,958 424
Non-Arable 7,567 0
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Population
Year Population*
19th century 450
1922 1,046
1931 1,439
1945 2,170
1948 2,517
Est. Refugees 1998 15,458
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Number of Houses
Year Number of Houses
1931 247
1948 432
Near By Townswhat's new
al-Sarafand
          ↖
Jaba'
↑
(N)
Ijzim
↗        
Kafr Lam  ←
'Ayn Ghazal
→   Ijzim
            ↙
al-Tantura
↓
Fureidis
↘           
Zikhron Ya'akov
Schools 'Ayn Ghazal had two schools: the 1st was an elementary school for boys which was founded by the Ottomans in 1886, and the 2nd school was an elementary school for girls.
Shrines / Maqams A shrine for a local sage known by al-Shaykh Shahada (still standing).
Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands		 'En Ayyala and 'Ofer
Featured Video

Village Before Nakba

The village was situated on the edges of a wadi on the higher slopes of Mount Carmel. It was near the highway between Haifa and Tel Aviv, a location that accorded it special importance during the war of 1948. In the late nineteenth century, Ayn Ghazal was a small village built of stone and mud. The village's 450 residents cultivated 35 faddans (1 faddan = 100-250 dunums). The villagers were Muslims and maintained a shrine for a local sage named Shaykh Shahada. The village had an elementary school for boys that was founded around 1886, during the Ottoman period. It also had an elementary school for girls and a cultural and athletic club. Water from a nearby well, drilled in the 1940s, was pumped into the village via a pipeline. The village economy was based on livestock breeding and agriculture; in 1944/45 olive trees were planted on about 1,400 dunums, and a total of 8,472 dunums was allocated to cereals. The village's proximity to the city of Haifa made it possible for part of the population to work in the service sector of the port and in its commercial section.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

The New York Times quoted a Jewish newspaper as saying that there was an attack on the village on 14 March 1948, in which four houses were razed to the ground. The British police stated that one Arab woman was killed and five men were wounded in the attack. The Palestinian newspaper Filastin had reported an attack on Ayn Ghazal a few days earlier, on 10 March, without giving further details. Two months later, on 20 May, another attack took place. An informant told a reporter for the Associated Press that Ayn Ghazal was stormed by the Haganah after snipers halted traffic on the Haifa-Tel Aviv road. No mention was made of casualties.

Ayn Ghazal,Jaba' , and Ijzim constituted the Little Triangle south of Haifa, which resisted a number of Israeli attacks in subsequent months and formed a pocket that was not occupied until the end of July 1948. Three main attempts were made to capture the villages. The first two attempts, on 18 June and 8 July, were successfully repulsed by the villages' defenders. In the third, the Israeli army took advantage of the second truce to strike with a special force drawn from units of the Golani, Carmeli, and Alexandroni brigades. The operation began on 24 July and involved massive artillery and aerial bombardment for a whole day. (Later, Israeli foreign minister Shertok lied to a United Nations mediator and said that 'no planes were used.') On 26 July, an Associated Press story noted simply that Israeli planes and infantry had violated the Palestinian truce by attacking the three villages.

Despite the severity of the onslaught, the villages still took two days to occupy, and Israeli troops continued to fire on villagers as they fled. Israeli historian Benny Morris states that captured villagers were ordered to bury the charred bodies of from 25 to 30 people at Ayn Ghazal, and some reports indicated that there had been a massacre in the village. But the Israeli authorities denied this, saying that the bodies were burned because they had been found dead and had begun to decompose. The New York Times reported at the time that Israeli liaison officers admitted to the UN truce supervisors that nine villagers had been killed at Ayn Ghazal. The United Nations could find no evidence of a massacre. However, in mid-September UN investigators put the number of killed or missing from the three villages at 130, according to the Times. UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte condemned Israel's 'systematic' destruction of Ayn Ghazal and Jaba' and asked that the Israeli government restore at its own expense all houses damaged or destroyed during and after the attack. Bernadotte said that 8,000 people had been driven out of the three villages and demanded that they be allowed to return. Israel rejected Bernadotte's demand.

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

The settlement of En Ayyala was established 3 km southeast of the village site in 1949; contrary to Morris (M:xx), it is not on village land. The settlement of Ofer was established on village land, 2 km southeast of the village, in 1950.

Village Today

The dilapidated shrine of Shaykh Shahada is the only standing structure on the village site . Ruins of walls and piles of stones can be seen all over the site, as well as stands of pine, cactus, and fig and pomegranate trees. The site has recently been fenced in for use as a grazing area. The flat lands around it are also used for growing vegetables, bananas, and other types of fruit. Parts of the slopes are planted with almond trees.

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
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More Information مخطط البلد
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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
Abdullah AbuKhaled - -
رزان - عمان, الاردن
حسن جرادات - -
Hisham Abbas Manasera -
omar عبد الحق -
أبو مريم المقدسي أبو زليخة -
جلال فهد المحمود العراق
ابو البراء - فلسطين, فلسطين
أحمد الشيخ علي العيوش اربد , الاردن
بسمه مصباح ابو زليخه ابو زليخــــــــــــــــــه الزرقاء, الاردن
Jamila Abdulhaq - ابوظبي, الامارات
ابو عدي العيوش amman, jordan
hassan elsheikh ali rahamneh amman, jordan
حسان سلامة سلامة الشارقة, الشارقة
علي الصعبي المناصرة العراق
خالد قاسم سعيد العوسج العوسج -
احمد قاسم سعيد العوسج العوسج -
علي قاسم سعيد العوسج العوسج -
عبد القادر قاسم سعيد العوسج - -
يوسف قاسم سعيد العوسج - -
عبد الله العثامنة صيدا, لبنان
حمزه حسين موسى الزياتـنه لارنكا, قبرص
علي عبدالحق عبدالحق -
MOHA121 - BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
محمد توفيق أحمد مرعي - أبو توفيق الزياتنه ألمانيا - زاربروكن, ألمانيا
خالد زامل العثامنه الشارقه
شعبان - سوريا
Alaa' Abu-zulaikha - amman, palestine \ jordan
Khaled Al Shaikh Ali - -
Deema Abu-Zulaikha Al-Athamnah Amman, Jordan
Rami Abdelhaq Saudia Arabia
mustafa abbas manasra alepo, syria
obayda abuhamad Abuhamad jordan
المنتصر المناصرة سورية, سورية
زيد - ابوظبي
wisam_alkhalid - Iraq_baghdad
عائلة ابو حيط ابو حيط في الشتات
Mousa Abo Shareef Abo Shareef -
Samir Shehadeh Shehadeh Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
أيمن عصفور عصفور متزوج, سوريا
Amjad Shehadeh Dubai, UAE
waleed abu hameed abu hameed vejle, danmark
adnan abo zlekha al athamneh daraa, syria
yaser abo jaas abo al jaas syria, syria
Taleb Alqasem rahamneh amman, jordan
Mohammad Jamal Alqasem Abu qasem -
Ahmad Abu-Zahra alo'yosh amman, jordan
Bassam Jadaan Jadaan Amman, Jordan
Mazin Abbas Abbas -
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