Welcome To al-Butayha - البطيحه (אל-בוטיחה)

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

Value

Occupation Date

May 4, 1948

Distance From District

13 (km) South East of Safad

Elevation

-200 (meters)

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details

Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction

Map Location

See location #76 on the map

View from satellite

Military Operation

Operation Matate (Broom) (a sub-operation of Operation Yiftach)

Attacking Units

The Palmach's First Battalion

Defenders

Local militia & Arab Liberation Army

Refugees' Migration Routes

Refugees were mostly forced into Syria.

Exodus Cause

Expulsion by Zionist troops

Village Temains

The village has been completely destroyed, and only house walls and rubble left behind.

Ethnically Cleansing

al-Butayha inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership

Ethnic Group	Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab	16,690
Jewish	0
Public	0
**Total	16,690

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

Population

Year	Population*
1945	650
1948	754
Est. Refugees 1998	4,630

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Nearby Wadies & Rivers

The village was situated 1/4 km east of the Jordan river and 2 km north of Lake Tiberias.

Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands

Almagor settlement and a picnic area known by Park ha-Yarden.

Village Before Nakba

The village was located in a hilly area next to the Syrian border, about 0.25 km east of the Jordan and 2 km from Lake Tiberias. It overlooked a broad expanse of land to the south of the city of Tiberias. Its name meant 'marshland' in Arabic. [D 6/2:269 fn.1.] The Arab geographer al-Qalqashandi, writing in 1459, described it as a settlement in the sub-district of Safad. [Cited in D 6/2:317] Modern al-Butayha was classified as a hamlet by the Palestine Index Gazetteer. In 1944/45 a total of 3,842 dunums of its land was allocated to cereals; 238 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

AI-Butayha's location indicates that it was targeted for occupation during the Haganah's Operation Matate (Broom), a portion of Operation Yiftach (see Abil al-Qamh, Safad sub-district). Operation Matate (Broom), implemented on 4 May 1948, was designed to 'clear' an area north of Lake Tiberias and west of the Jordan River. Israeli historian Benny Morris writes that it also did much to undermine morale among residents of the whole region. The justification given for the onslaught by the Zionist forces was that residents had been harassing traffic to and from the Jewish settlement of Ro'sh Pinna. Morris reports that many houses in the occupied villages were razed to the ground the very next day by Palmach sappers. Operation Broom resulted in the displacement of 2,000 refugees to Syria, according to Syrian authorities quoted by Morris. [M:121-22; S:1582]

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

The village lands are used by the settlement of Almagor (206257), established in 1961. A picnic area known as Parkha-Yarden is some 200 m south of the site.

Village Today

Only the black basalt walls of destroyed houses remain. Doum palms and olive trees grow among these ruins and further mark the site. On the northern edge of the site, tall eucalyptus trees grow, as well as scattered patches of cactus. A man-made canal runs in a north-south direction and turns eastward near the northern edge of the site (see photos section).

Source

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

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

Display Name	Clan/Hamolah	Country of Residence
Kholoud	AlSafadi	Amman, Jordan

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