Welcome To 'Artuf - عرتوف (ערתוף)

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

Value

Occupation Date

July 18, 1948

Distance From District

21.5 (km) West of Jerusalem

Elevation

250 (meters)

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details

Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction

Pre-Nakba Aerial View

Map Location

See location #23 on the map

View from satellite

Military Operation

Second phase of Operation Dani

Attacking Units

The Fourth Battalion of the Har'el Brigade

Defenders

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhoods, some Arab Liberation Army volunteers, and some local Palestinian militia.

Exodus Cause

Military assault by Zionist troops

Village Temains

Artuf was mostly destroyed and defaced with the exception of two village houses and the village cemetery.

Ethnically Cleansing

'Artuf inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership

Ethnic Group	Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab	401
Jewish	0
Public	2
**Total	403

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

Land Usage
As of 1945

Land Usage	Arab (Dunum)*
Irrigated & Plantation	61
Olive Groves	20
Planted W/ Cereal	279
Built up	18
Arable	340
Non-Arable	45

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Population

Year	Population*
1596	110
1922	305
1931	253
1945	350
1948	406
Est. Refugees 1998	2,493

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Number of Houses

Year	Number of Houses
1931	58
1948	93

Near By Towns

	Ishwa' ↑ (N)	Kasla ↗
Sar'a ←	'Artuf
↙ al-Burayj	↓ Dayr Aban	↘ Dayr al-Hawa

Schools

One elementary school

Places of Warship

'Artuf had a mosque known by al-'Umari Mosque.

Shrines / Maqams

And it also had a maqam for a local sage known as al-Shaykh 'Ali al-Ghimadi.

Archeological Sites

The village contains Khirbat Marmita and Khirbat al-Burj.

Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands

Hartuv, Nacham, and possibly Beit Shemesh too.

Village Before Nakba

The village stood on a moderately high plateau, surrounded by plains on the south, east, and west. It was on a secondary road that linked it to a highway leading to Jerusalem. In 1596, 'Artuf was a village in the nahiya of Ramla (liwa' of Gaza) with a population of 110. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, and fruit, as well as on other types of produce and property, such as goats, beehives, and vineyards. In the late nineteenth century, 'Artuf was a small village built on a low hill overlooking a Valley. The villagers obtained their water from a pool in the valley. Most houses were built of stone and mud; a few were built of stone and cement and had domed roofs. The residents, who were Muslims, worshiped in a mosque called the al-'Umari Mosque, perhaps in reference to 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Muslim caliph. The tomb of a local Muslim sage named Shaykh 'Ali al-Ghimadi stood on the outskirts of the village.

During the Mandate, the authorities established a fortified police station about 1 km west of 'Artuf and a train station just beyond that. In addition, 'Artuf had an elementary school. There was also a small Zionist settlement, Hartuv, southwest of the village. Hartuv was initially founded in 1883 by the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity Amongst the Jews. It failed, however, in 1886 because the Jewish settlers there resisted the English efforts to convert them to Christianity and left the settlement. It was revived in 1895 by Zionist settlers from Bulgaria who were citizens of the Ottoman empire and who spoke Turkish as well as Bulgarian and Ladino. As Ottoman citizens they had permission to settle near 'Artuf, had deeds to the land purchased for them by Zionist organizations, and gradually established peaceful relations with their Palestinian neighbors. Although the villagers of 'Artuf worried that the settlers would encroach upon their own land, they generally dealt with the settlers as neighbors.

Unlike most other Zionist settlers, the inhabitants of Hartuv were willing to lease parts of their land to Arab cultivators, some of whom lived in 'Artuf. The settlement was not prosperous, however; in 1904 it had only 75 inhabitants. This was partly due to the inadequate support it received from mainstream Zionist organizations, which objected to the settlement's 'liberal' policies toward the Arabs. Many Zionists were opposed to the employment of Arab workers on Zionist land, and most certainly did not lease Zionist land to non-Jews. In 1929 Hartuv was destroyed during fighting between Zionists and Palestinians who came from other parts of the country. Although its Sephardic inhabitants returned soon after to rebuild it, the settlement did not expand. Its population was only 100 in 1948. Construction of the Zionist-sponsored 'Shimshon' cement factory was begun near 'Artuf in 1948, but it is not likely that any of the villagers found work there because of the Jewish National Fund's policy of excluding Arab labor from all Jewish enterprises.

About half of the village population worked in agriculture, while the rest worked in the nearby Bab al-Wad railway station. Their agricultural lands extended west of the village, where fruit trees and almond trees were planted. In 1944/45 a total of 279 dunums was allotted to cereals; 61 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 20 dunums were planted with olive trees. In addition to the village itself, which had been constructed over an earlier settlement, there were two archaeological sites nearby: Khirbat Marmita (151130), about 1 km east of the village, and al-Burj (149129), on the site of Hartuv to the southwest. Excavation of Khirbat al-Burj has been carried out by the Hebrew University since 1985; it contains artifacts dating to the late fourth millenium B.C. and the Byzantine period.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

'Artuf was one of three villages that had been punished by the British in late March 1948. After an Arab attack on the adjacent Jewish settlement of Hartuv, 600 British troops moved into 'Artuf, Ishwa', and Bayt Mahsir on 23 March. The New York Times correspondent reported that 'almost all the villagers' had been evacuated before the troops occupied the villages, but this evacuation was only temporary; the villagers returned shortly afterwards.

It was not until mid-July that 'Artuf (and a number of other villages in the Jerusalem area) was actually depopulated. It was occupied during the second phase of Operation Dani (see Abu al-Fadl, Ramla sub-disctrict) by the Fourth Battalion of the Har'el Brigade. According to the History of the War of Independence and Israeli historian Benny Morris, this occurred during the night of 17−18 July 1948. The offensive is described by Morris as follows: 'Much of the population of these villages ... had left the area previously. Most of the remaining population fled with the approach of the Har'el columns and with the start of mortar barrages. The handful of people who remained at each site when the Israelis entered were expelled.' The Second Platoon of B Company (of the Fourth Battalion), armed with mortars and machine guns, first pushed out the inhabitants of nearby Ishwa' and 'Islin; then they moved toward 'Artuf. Aiming their mortars at the police station west of 'Artuf, they lobbed explosives at both the station and the village. This night-time bombardment convinced the villagers to flee. Most of them walked three miles up the slopes toward the village of Dayr al-Hawa, to the southeast. The first Israeli troops to enter the village, on the day after its depopulation, were members of a platoon commanded by Rafael Eytan.

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

Zionists had revived the settlement of Hartuv in 1895 (later known as Kefar 'Avodat Hartuv) on village lands, but it was abandoned several times. The settlement of Nacham (150130) was established in 1950 on the ruins of the village of 'Artuf and the Zionist settlement of Hartuv. Beyt Shemesh (149129) was established near the site in 1950 on land that had belonged to the village of Dayr Aban.

Village Today

One stone house, located outside the Jewish settlement of Nacham, has been expanded, and is now inhabited by a Jewish family. In the middle of the Jewish settlement is a small stone house that is used as a warehouse; it stands by the site of the former mosque. On the western slopes of the site is a circular structure with no roof that was formerly used as a lime kiln (kabbara). Limestone was heated in the kabbara until it was reduced to powder, and this powder, mixed with water, served as whitewash for walls. The village cemetery, to the west, has been levelled; only one or two graves remain on its eastern edge. Part of the British police headquarters is still standing. Elsewhere, the village site is covered with scattered stone rubble. Olive, fig, and cypress trees grow on the village site, especially in the west and north.

Source

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

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

صورة نادرة من الجو لقرية عرتوف قضاء القدس عام 1947..

Display Name	Clan/Hamolah	Country of Residence
أحمد سلطان	-
عرتوف	رحال	-
وليد رحال	رحال	عمان, الاردن
فلسطين رحال	رحال	-
احمد رحال	-	-
ala khater	-	NJ , USA
ابن عرتوف	-	-
Shahin	Shahin	Jordan, Jordan
محمد رسول سلطان	سلطان	الاردن
om abdallah	shahada	Jordan
rahal	رحال	amman, jordan
ابو حسين	رحال	عرتوف
رحال	رحال	-
محمد	-	-
يزن سلطان	سلطان	-
yossi ben-artzi	-	haifa, israel
بنت الشتات	شتات	عمان, الأردن
adel shihadah	shihadah	khurtom, sudan
Jamila Shihadah	Shihadah	-
Thabit Shihadah	-	VA, USA
abdullahrahhal	rahhal	ontario, canada
Ahmad Shihadah	-	-
Abir Shahin	-	Va, USA
maher shuhadeh	shuhadeh	bahrain

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