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Welcome To Kasla - كسلا (כסלא)

District of Jerusalem
Ethnically cleansed days ago
العربية

Google Earth
Picture for Kasla Village - Palestine: : That is how the
Gallery (99)
Statistic & Fact Value
Occupation Date July 17, 1948
Distance From District 17 (km) West of Jerusalem
Elevation 625 (meters)
Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Detailswhat's new
Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction
Map Location See location #17 on the map

View from satellite
Military Operation Operation Dani
Attacking Units Har'el Brigade
Exodus Cause Military assault by Zionist troops
Village Temains Most likely the village was completely destroyed and defaced.
Ethnically Cleansing Kasla inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.
Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership
Ethnic Group Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab 8,001
Jewish 0
Public 3
**Total 8,004
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
**Town Lands' Demarcation Maps
Land Usage
As of 1945
Land Usage Arab (Dunum)*
Irrigated & Plantation 440
Olive Groves 203
Planted W/ Cereal 2,265
Built up 10
Arable 2,705
Non-Arable 5,289
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Population
Year Population*
1596 61
1922 233
1931 298
1945 280
1948 325
Est. Refugees 1998 1,995
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Number of Houses
Year Number of Houses
1931 72
1948 78
Near By Townswhat's new
Bayt Mahsir
          ↖
Saris
↗        
Ishwa'  ←
Kasla
→   Bayt Umm al-Mays
            ↙
Dayr al-Hawa
↘           
'Aqqur
Town's Name Through History The Canaanites referred to Kasla by the city of Chesalon, and the Romans called it either Chesalon or Cheslon.
Shrines / Maqams A shrine for a local sage known as al-Shaykh Ahmad.
Water Supply Two springs in the nearby valley and another spring to the east provided the villagers with fresh water needs.
Archeological Sites Kasla was surrounded by several khirbas (including Khirbat Sar'a) which contained the ruins of walls, cisterns, and carved stones.
Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands		 Ramat Razi'el and Kesalon
Featured Video

Village Before Nakba

The village stood on the top of an elongated mountain that stretched from east to west, overlooking two deep wadis on the northern and southern sides. The village itself was north of a secondary road that ran across the mountain in an east-west direction. The road intersected a highway to the east, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and crossed another highway to the west that ran between Bayt Jibrin (in the Hebron sub-disctrict) and the Jerusalem−Jaffa highway. Kasla has been identified with the site of the Canaanite city of Chesalon (Joshua 15:10). It was a large village known as Chesalon or Cheslon in the Roman period. In 1596 Kasla (or Kisla) was a village in the nahiya of Ramla (liwa' of Gaza) with a population of sixty-one. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, sesame, and fruit trees as well as on goats and beehives.

In the late nineteenth century, Kasla was described as a village on top of a rugged ridge with a deep valley to the north. Two springs in the valley and another to the east provided the villagers with water. The village plan was rectangular in shape. Most of its houses, which were built of stone, extended in an east-west direction along the secondary road; a few houses were built east of the village center along this road. The people of Kasla were Muslim; they maintained a shrine for a Shaykh Ahmad. Water for domestic use came from several springs around the village.

Agriculture was based on olives, fruit, and grain, which were planted in the lowlands and valley floors; crops were rainfed and irrigated from springs. Some lands were used as grazing areas, especially in the steep rugged slopes. In 1944/45 a total of 2,265 dunums was allotted to cereals; 440 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 203 dunums were devoted to olive cultivation. The village was itself an archaeological site and was surrounded by several khirbas that contained the ruins of walls, cisterns, and carved stones.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

Like nearby Ishwa' and a few other villages on a side road leading to Jerusalem, Kasla was 'cleansed' on 16 July 1948, according to the History of the War of Independence. Israeli historian Benny Morris puts the date of occupation a day later, on 17−18 July. Morris writes that the villagers in this area either had left earlier, had fled under mortar barrages, or had been expelled by the occupying unit, the Har'el Brigade. The village was overrun as part of Operation Dani (see Abu al-Fadl, Ramla sub-district).

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

Israel established the settlement of Ramat Razi'el (156131) on village land in 1948. Kesalon (154131) was built on village land in 1952, 1 km south of the village site, on the archaeological site of Khirbat Sar'a.

Village Today

Wild grass covers the entire site and grows amid the rubble of the stone houses, which is difficult to distinguish from the rubble of ruined terraces. Almond trees grow on top of the mountain and cactuses grow along the site's southern slopes. Northeast of the village, two carob trees are surrounded by the remains of a vineyard. On the slopes, thick wild grass grows on several terraces, which are still intact.

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
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