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

Welcome To Safsaf - صفصاف (צפצאף)

District of Safad
Ethnically cleansed days ago

العربية

Google Earth
Picture for Safsaf Village - Palestine: : After we were massacred, the most
Gallery (71)
Statistic & Fact Value
Occupation Date October 29, 1948
Distance From District 7 (km) North West of Safad
Elevation 750 (meters)
Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Detailswhat's new
Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction
Pre-Nakba Aerial Viewwhat's new
Pre-Nakba Aerial View
Map Location See location #50 on the map

View from satellite
Military Operation Operation Hiram
Defenders Local militia & Arab Liberation Army
Acts of Terror The massacre of 70 blind folded men, also three cases of rape, including the rape of 14 year old girl. The girl was raped while getting water for the soldiers
Exodus Cause Expulsion by Zionist troops
Village Temains The village has been mostly destroyed with the exception of few houses (some are inhabited by Jewish settlers)
Ethnically Cleansing Safsaf inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.
Terminating Refugee Camps

The people of Safsaf were mostly ethnically cleansed Lebanon, however, some made it to Syria:
Nahr El-Bared, Burj Al-Barajneh, Badawi, Ein Al-Helweh, Sabra/Shatila, Ghoro-Ba'labak, Wihdat (Amman-Jordan), Ein Elma, Burj Al-Shamali, Tal Al-Za'atar, Yarmouk (Syria), & Homs (Syria).
If you have more information to add, please join us at the Message Board discussion section.

Clans

So far we are aware of the following clans: 
Edghaim, Zaghmout, Shryadeh, Younis, Hamad, Obaid, AlSalih, Kurdyeh, Farhood, Zaidan, Horani, Sabha, Dea'bess, Mera'i, Hamzeh/Souss, Jookh, Hlaihel, Khalil Hasan, Abulkull, al-Qadri, and Balsheh.
If you have more information to add, please join us at the Message Board discussion section.

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership
Ethnic Group Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab 5,344
Jewish 0
Public 2,047
**Total 7,391
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
**Town Lands' Demarcation Maps
Land Usage
As of 1945
Land Usage Arab (Dunum)*
Irrigated & Plantation 769
Olive Groves 488
Planted W/ Cereal 2,586
Built up 62
Arable 3,355
Non-Arable 3,974
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Population
Year Population*
1596 138
19th century 100
1922 521
1931 662
1945 910
1948 1,056
Est. Refugees 1998 6,483
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Number of Houses In (1931): 124, and according to Mohammad Edghaim's research Safsaf had 214 houses in 1947.
Near By Townswhat's new
Sa'sa'
         
Taytaba
       
Bayt Jann  
   Qaddita

Mirun
Town's Name Through History The Romans referred to the village by safsofa.
Schools Safsaf had an elementary school for boys founded during the British Mandate period.
Places of Warship One mosque and the shrine of al-Ajami located in the southern borders of Safsaf.
Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands
ha-Shahar and Bar Yochay
Featured Video

Village Before Nakba

The village, situated on a low hill that inclined slightly to the southwest, was linked by a spur to a highway leading to Safad. Its name, Safsaf, meant 'willow' in Arabic. The village was called Safsofa in Roman times. In 1596, Safsaf was a village in the nahiya of Jira (liwa' of Safad) with a population of 138. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, olives, and fruits, as well as on other types of produce, such as goats and beehives. [Hut. and Abd.:177] In the late nineteenth century, travelers reported that Safsaf was a small village situated on a plain, with a population of about 100. They also noted that 'ornamented stones of a preexisting public building' had been built into the doorway of the mosque; this may have indicated that the site had been abandoned for a time and then reinhabited. [SWP (1881) I:257] The villagers cultivated olive and fig trees and vineyards. [SWP (1881) I:200]

In modern times the village lay on the eastern side of the Safad-Tarshiha highway and extended in a northeast-southwest direction. All of the residents of Safsaf were Muslims. A mosque and several shops were located in the village center, and an elementary school was established during the British Mandate. Agriculture, the chief economic activity, was both irrigated from springs and rainfed. Fruits and olives were cultivated on the land north of the village. In 1944/45 a total of 2,586 dunums was allotted to cereals; 769 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

Safsaf was the first village to be occupied during Operation Hiram (see 'Arab al-Samniyya, Acre sub-disctrict). In the early months of the war, the village had been the headquarters of the Arab Liberation Army's (ALA) Second Yarmuk Battalion, led by Adib al-Shishakli (later president of Syria), according to Palestinian historian 'Arif al-'Arif. It fell some time before dawn on 29 October 1948, and was the scene of one of several massacres committed during the operation. Two platoons of armored cars and a tank company from the Sheva' (Seventh) Brigade attacked the village. The History of the War of Independence states merely that the village 'was occupied after a brief battle.' However, Israel Galili, formerly head of the Haganah National Staff, has listed the crimes committed by the Israeli soldiers: '52 men tied with a rope and dropped into a well and shot. 10 were killed. Women pleaded for mercy. 3 cases of rape ... A girl aged 14 was raped. Another 4 were killed.' [M:23031; R:305; T:322]

Eyewitnesses gave a more vivid account of the occupation of Safsaf. They said that when the attack began on the village, the militiamen were braced to defend it but were surprised by a three-pronged assault. One militaman said later, 'We did not expect to fight them on three fronts. When none of the Arab armies joined the fighting, we retreated, together with the ALA volunteers to Lebanon. We left behind most of the villagers, many dead or injured .... ' Those left behind recounted how the Israeli soldiers entered Safsaf around sunrise and ordered the villagers to line up in a spot in the northern part of the village. One villager told Palestinian historian Nafez Nazzal: 'As we lined up, a few Jewish soldiers ordered four girls to accompany them to carry water for the soldiers. Instead, they took them to our empty houses and raped them. About seventy of our men were blindfolded and shot to death, one after the other, in front of us. The soldiers took their bodies and threw them on the cement covering of the village's spring and dumped sand on them.' In later days, Israeli troops visited the village, telling the inhabitants that they should forget what had occurred and could stay in their homes. But they began to leave under cover of night, about four at a time, until Safsaf was empty.

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

Israel established the settlement of ha-Shahar, later renamed Sifsofa (191268), in 1949 on village lands. A second settlement, Bar Yochay (191267), was established in 1979, also on village lands. Both are very near, if not on top of, the village site

Village Today

The site is overgrown with grass and scattered trees among which can be seen a few terraces and piles of stones from destroyed houses. A few houses are inhabited by Israelis. A fraction of surrounding land is cultivated by the settlements, and the rest is forested

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
Featured Article
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
Siraj Youness Youness Michigan , USA
عبدالكريم يونس - الكويت
Nader El Hourani Hourani -
Ziad Younis Younis MA, USA
nisheh abu aisheh west bank, palestine
GHASSAN KAYED KAYED MI, USA
Khaled Younes Younes -
Ibn Nedal YOUNIS MA, USA
Labid Afif Ahmad Taleb Mohammad Hamad Hamad Abo Swaid -
رائف خالد - -
mohammad shreidi shreidi doha, qatar
Husam M Edghaim Edghaim Amman
Abu Hamad Hamad Doha, Qatar
ahmad slaeh - -
Nidal حمد Norway, Norway
Ibrahim Kayed - -
Ali Zagmout Ein Alhelweh Saida, Lebanon
MyQ89 - Doha, 009745430978
ashraf Hourani حوراني Lebanon
Ali Charida Shreidi KY, USA
Ab_Khalil zaghmout damascus- syria
abo mohamed kurdiya skهne, sweden
hamzeh khalid saleh saleh saida, lebanon
Hussam Chreidah Chreidah Ontario, Canada
Mohammed Bassem Shraidi Shraidi south, Lebanon
Sami mohd Zaghmout Zaghmout Doha, Qatar
Rawan Zaghmout Zaghmout Doha - Qatar
okasha salman -
mohamad hourani hourani saida
Manar Younis Younis -
Raghida Younis Younis MA, USA
hks صالح saida, lebanon
Ahmads Younes United Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates
Ibrahim Chakeeb Chriedie - UAE
CHADI KAYED - dk, danmark
merei - -
Fouad Edaeibes - Alberta, Canada
Rami Zaghmout - Qatar, Qatar
ahmed zaghmout - -
hadeel zaghmout - Doha, Qatar
Nawaf Zaghmout Zaghmout Bahrain
Mona Younis YOUNIS Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
KHALED KAYED KAYED UAE, UAE
Abdulrahman Zaghmout Zaghmout Doha, Qatar
Abu ez-zane Hamad -
Rami Afif Ahmad Talib Mohamad Hamad Hamad Abo Swaid Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
ghassan yousef -
Rihab Charida Charida NSW, AUSTRALIA
Ali Mohammed Kurdieh Kurdyeh UAE
abu atta deaibes abu dhabi, uae
ABU ZAHIR YOUNIS -
haysam obeid obeid windsor, canada
khaled zaghmout zaghmout Ontario, Canada
Mohammad Ahmad ALSheraidy - Ontario, Canada
mohammed zaghmout - -
Ahmad Younis Younis ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
IHAB KAYED the Lebanon , Lebanon
YOUSSEF AL MIARI AL-MIARI WINDSOR-CANADA
sofsafi shreidi tx, usa
Mohd Hassan Hamad Hamad Lebanon, Lebanon
SALAH EL-DDIN EL-HOURANI SAIDA, LEBANON
SALE SHRIDIH SHRIDIH SAIDA, LEBANON
ma7moud ed-ghaim dammam, saudi arabia
Ali Husain Ali Hamad Hamad Sharjah, UAE
MOHAMAD HAMAD HAMAD DAMASCUS, SYRIA
Jullanar Shriedeh - AbuDhabi
fadi el-saleh el-salah south of lebanon, lebanon
Emad Zaghmout Zaghmout -
abdulraman nizar Zaghmout Zaghmout qatar, Qatar
hassan sabha sabha -
Abo omar Sabha Sweden, Sweden
Hassan El Hanoun - Saida, Lebanon
Ousama Zaghmout Zaghmout USA
IBRAHIM AWAD SALEH - sidon, lebanon
Tarek Saleh Saleh ohio, United States
Ibrahim awad Saleh - sidon, lebanon
omar hamad - uae, uae
meirna edghaim - -
Manar Kabrawi - Abu Dhabi, UAE
wassem shridh shridh lebanon, nbc
kurdie KURDIEH lebanon, lebanon
Sheikh ali alkadry - Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
el-hourani el-hourani united arab emirates, united arab emirates
mohamad sabha south of lebanon, lebanon
Abo Jakub Hamad Oslo, Norway
Dua'a Younis Younis Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Haytham Obaid - -
Fouad Youssif Abdul-Rahman Tennessee, U S A
ABDULLAH EDGHAIM - -
fadi kurddieh kurddieh -
hani kurdieh sofsaf -
ABED YOUNIS - -
obied obied lebanon, tripoli. nahr el bard
Khalil Saleh - -
thunder el saleh south of lebanon, lebanon
HISHAM OBEID obeid holland
moien obeid Obeid BEIRUT, Lebanon
mamoon obeid - berlen, germany
MOHD OBEID obeid tripol- naher el bared, lebanon
Hassan Younes younes -
Ayman Obeid Obeid abu dhabi, UAE
Mohamad Kurdieh Kurdieh Saida, Lebanon
khaled shreidi - montreal, canada
TAREK KURDIEH - montreal, canada
Ahmad Hamad Hamad Montreal, Canada
Mohammad Abdallah Edghaim Edghaim -
Ali Zeidan - -
All Registered Members
Fake Valor: Why Did Zionist Jews Hoist Nazis Flag on Their Ships in the 1930s?

What is new?