PalestineRemembered About Us Oral History العربية
Menu Pictures Zionist FAQs Haavara Maps
PalestineRemembered.com Satellite View Search Donate Contact Us Looting 101 The Home of Palestinians العربية
About Us Zionist FAQs Conflict 101 Pictures Maps Oral History Haavara Facts Not Lies Zionism 101 Zionist Quotes

Welcome To Qalunya - قالونيا (קאלוניא)

District of Jerusalem
Ethnically cleansed days ago
العربية

Google Earth
Picture for Qalunya Village - Palestine: : Our stolen home; we shall return -- Mahmoud Moutah #2
 Gallery (335)
Statistic & Fact Value
Occupation Date April 3, 1948
Distance From District 6 (km) West of Jerusalem
Elevation 650 (meters)
Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Detailswhat's new
Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction
Map Location See location #5 on the map

View from satellite
Military Operation Possibly Operation Nahchon
Attacking Units Possibly by IZL (Irgun Zvai Leumi or ITZEL) terror gangs and some Haganah troops.
Exodus Cause Military assault by Zionist troops
Village Temains The village was mostly destroyed with the exception of few deserted houses and the cemetery. One of the houses has been renovated and used by an Israeli Jewish settler.
Ethnically Cleansing Qalunya was mostly emptied of its inhabitants because of nearby fighting on April 2nd, 1948, and upon occupatio it was completely cleansed.
Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership
Ethnic Group Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab 3,594
Jewish 1,084
Public 166
**Total 4,844
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
**Town Lands' Demarcation Maps
Land Usage
As of 1945
Land Usage Arab (Dunum)* Jewish (Dunum)*
Irrigated & Plantation 1,022 202
Olive Groves 200 0
Planted W/ Cereal 846 109
Built up 78 149
Arable 1,868 311
Non-Arable 1,814 624
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Population
Year Population*
1596 110
1922 549
1931 632
1945 1,260 (350 Jewish)
1948 1,056 (350 Jewish)
Est. Refugees 1998 6,483
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Number of Houses
Year Number of Houses
1931 156
1948 260
Near By Townswhat's new
Bayt Surik
↑
(N)
Bayt Iksa
↗        
al-Qastal  ←
Qalunya
→   Lifta
            ↙
Sataf
↓
'Ayn Karim
↘           
Dayr Yasin
Town's Name Through History The Canaanites known Qalunya by Mozah, the Romans called it Colonia Amosa or Colonia Emmaus (see 'Imwas in al-Ramla district for details), and the Crusades referred to it by as Qalonie.
Places of Warship Qalunya had a mosque named after al-Shaykh Hamad, and believe it or not, it also contained an old synagogue built in 1871.
Nearby Wadies & Rivers Wadi Qalunya passed through the eastern edges of the village.
Archeological Sites Qaluna also has two unnamed khirbas to the north that contains the foundations of buildings and artificial caves carved into the rock.
Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands		 The west Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Tziyyon.
Featured Video

Village Before Nakba

The village stood on a mountain slope, facing southwest; Wadi Qalunya passed through its eastern edge. The village lay on the Jerusalem−Jaffa highway, and a dirt path linked it to neighboring villages. Qalunya is identified with the Canaanite town of Mozah (Joshua 18:26); its name was found stamped on pottery handles in Tall al-Nasba (171143). After A.D. 71 Vespasian settled 800 Roman soldiers in the town, which became a Roman settlement known as Colonia Amosa or Colonia Emmaus. The word colonia produced the Byzantine name, Koloneia, for the site. The status of the site in the early Islamic period has not been established, but the name was preserved in Crusader times as Qalonie or Qalunia and in Arabic as Qalunya. Mujir aI-Din al-Hanbali (d. 1522) reported that in 1192 it was a village near Jerusalem. In 1596, Qalunya was a village in the nahiya of Jerusalem (liwa' of Jerusalem) with a population of 110. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, and olives, as well as on other types of produce, such as goats, beehives, and molasses. In the late nineteenth century, Qalunya was a moderate-sized village perched on the slope of a hill, 300 feet above a valley. Travelers reported that it had a 'modern' restaurant. The villagers tended orange trees and lemon trees that were planted around a spring in the valley.

In 1859, Qalunya became the first location in the Palestinian countryside where Jewish immigrants acquired land for cultivation. Although a few settlers worked this land they did not live there on a regular basis until the early twentieth century, when a small settlement, Motza, was established.

Qalunya was circular in shape and the majority of its houses were built of stone. It was divided into several quarters that were separated by winding streets. More recent construction expanded first to the northwest and then to the south, with houses scattered along the Jerusalem−Jaffa highway. In the mid-1940s, the Arab population consisted of 900 Muslims and 10 Christians. The village mosque, named after a Shaykh Hamad, lay on the eastern side of the site. Qalunya had a few shops and an elementary school. The villagers drew their water from the springs around the site. Agriculture was both rainfed and irrigated; the lands were planted in grain, vegetables, and fruit trees, including olive trees, and vineyards. In 1944/45 a total of 846 dunums was allotted to cereals; 1,022 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 200 dunums were planted with olive trees. Archaeological remains in the village included the ruins of an arched building. Two khirbas north of the village contained the foundations of buildings and artificial caves carved into the rock.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

Qalunya was one of the main targets of Operation Nachshon (see Bayt Naqquba, Jerusalem sub-disctrict). Palmach units attacked Qalunya on 11 April, according to the History of the Haganah. Israeli historian Benny Morris writes, and the Haganah account confirms, that the occupying units spent two days systematically razing its houses to the ground. The New York Times also reported that Haganah units occupied Qalunya on 11 April and that they 'blew up a score of houses and left the entire village ablaze.'

Israeli sources give differing accounts of how the village was depopulated. Morris claims that the villagers had already fled on 2 or 3 April as a result of an attack, but an Irgun Zvai Leumi broadcast stated at the time that the inhabitants of Qalunya had fled as a result of the Deir Yasin massacre on 9 April. The Times correspondent wrote that most villagers had been evacuated and the others were ordered out before the village was destroyed.

An eyewitness account by an Anglo-Jewish resident of Jerusalem, Harry Levin, who accompanied the Palmach force during the assault on 11 April is an interesting commentary on all of these claims. As he described the event, 'Suddenly the village seemed to erupt. Our mortars started it, and at once became a bedlam of answering fire ... They fired wildly to all points of the compass ... Suddenly an explosion that seemed to rip open the hillside; shrieks of terror. Our shock troops and sappers had reached the houses ... More explosions ... In half an hour it was over.' Levin counted fourteen dead 'but there were more.' When Levin left, 'sappers were blowing up houses. One after another the solid stone buildings, some built in elaborate city style, exploded and crashed…'

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

Mevasseret Yerushalayirn (165134) was established in 1956 on village land. It was later joined with the settlement of Ma'oz Tziyyon (164133), built in 1951 on the lands of al-Qastal , to form a Jerusalem suburb called Mevasseret Tziyyon (164134). This suburb is northwest of the village site, largely on village land.

The settlement of Motza was built close to the village on land purchased by Jewish colonists in the 1850s. It was destroyed during fighting between Palestinians and Zionist settlers in July 1929 and was rebuilt as Motza Tachtit (166133) in 1930. Three years later, the settlement of Motza 'Illit (165133) was established nearby. Both were abandoned during the war of 1948 but were later repopulated; they are now suburbs of Jerusalem and are close to, but not on, the village lands.
The Village Today

Village Today

Only a few houses still stand, in the southwestern part of the site, by the cemetery. They have arched doors and windows. One of the houses is now occupied by a Jewish family. Stone rubble, parts of collapsed cement roofs, and iron window frames are scattered throughout the site. An old synagogue, built in 1871, still stands; it has arched gates and windows. The wild grass that grows on the site is burned off every year to clear the approaches to the nearby settlement. The village terraces have been preserved. Almond, fig, and olive trees, along with cactuses, grow on the terraces and along the bottom of the slope.

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
Related Links Wikipedia's Page
Facebook Page
Google Search
Google For Images
Google For Videos
More Information مخطط البلد
في كتاب كي لا ننسى
في كتاب بلادنا فلسطين
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
Mahdi Khatib - الاردن, 108
Sarah Farhan Abu Saad -
Faith Farhan Ayyash and Farhan -
Dr ALI ABED RABBO Khattab Ramallah, Palestine
Dr.Mohammad Abed Saleh Abed Rabbo - Barcelona, Palestine
mohammed kayed alkhatib alkhatib amman, jordan
samer salameh سلامه عسكر خطاب رام الله
malik ahmad mustafa hammad ABU SA'AD illinois, USA
nader salah salah il, usa
Nahid أبوغنيم صنعاء - الاقامة الحالية, الاردن
سوزان حمدان حمدان -
ياسمين حمدان حمدان -
أنس الصرص الصرص الأردن
رائد خضر خضر -
حازم جبران جبران ابو ظبي
fatma - -
ناصر askar dubai
ناصر غالب سمرين عسكر دبي , الإمارات
ABU_HUSSAIN عسكر amman, jordan
علي خطاب القدس
arwa salah SALAH palestine\Al-RAM
mohammad alkhatib alkhatib athens - greece , greece
محمد خضر خضر عمان
Bassam Al khtaib - -
ashraf - amman, jordan
nisreen derbas - -
Hussam Ahmad Mohammad Alkhatib Alkhatib -
هارون رمضان عسكر -
أبو جاسم عسكر عمان, الأردن
Dana Khalil - Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Safia F Barakat Barakat Ramallah
محمد عبدالرزاق خليل - الكويت
سامر محمد سليمان مشعل مشعل دبي
زكي خضر مشعل الامارات
فردوس سلامة ramalah
yasmeen salameh askar Amman, Jordan
أنس جابر - عمان, الاردن
الخطيب عسكر Amman
نضال مشاعلة - عمان, الاردن
dr.mai nayef حمدان غزة, 8
kaaes - -
saleh derbas derbas NY, NY
kayed khatib jordan
محمد فضل - عمان, عمان
فؤاد طه خطاب -
Wael Khalil - -
ليلى خالد عسكر الأردن
فلسطين عسكر -
خالد رمضان عسكر -
abu maher Abu said -
Mohammed Hamdan Hamdan IL, USA
Bassel Joudeh - USA
MOEYYED ATIEH MAKHLOUF IL, USA
kassem khalil,M.D - California, usa
Aziz Khalil - -
Osama Hamdan Hamdan MI, USA
All Registered Members

Fake Valor: Why Did Zionist Jews Hoist Nazis Flag on Their Ships in the 1930s?

What is new?