Welcome To al-Maghar - المغار (אל-מע'אר)

District of al-Ramla Ethnically cleansed days ago	العربية Google Earth
	Gallery (37)

Statistic & Fact

Value

Occupation Date

May 18, 1948

Distance From District

12 (km) Southwest of al-Ramla

Elevation

50 (meters)

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details

Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction

Pre-Nakba Aerial View

Map Location

See location #40 on the map

View from satellite

Military Operation

Operation Barak (lightening)

Attacking Units

Giv'ati Brigade

Exodus Cause

Military assault by Zionist troops

Village Temains

On June 10th 1948, the Jewish Army started leveling the village based on an order of Yosef Weitz (a Jewish National Fund official). However, few houses remain standing which were mostly looted by Israeli Jewish settlers.

Ethnically Cleansing

al-Maghar inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership

Ethnic Group	Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab	11,252
Jewish	2,659
Public	1,479
**Total	15,390

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

Land Usage
As of 1945

Land Usage	Arab (Dunum)*	Jewish (Dunum)*
Citrus Groves	1,772	194
Irrigated & Plantation	86	0
Olive Groves	22	0
Planted W/ Cereal	9,261	2,431
Built up	31	0
Arable	11,119	2,625
Non-Arable	1,581	34

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Population

Year	Population*
1922	966
1931	1,211
1945	1,740
1948	2,018
Est. Refugees 1998	12,395

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Number of Houses

Year	Number of Houses
1931	255
1948	424

Near By Towns

Yibna ↖	Zarnuqa ↑ (N)	'Aqir ↗
'Arab Suqrir ←	al-Maghar
↙ Bashshit	↓ Qatra	↘ Shahma

Schools

An elementary school for boys, and in 1945 it had an enrollment of 170 students.

Town's Notable People

In the eighth century A.D, the village was the birthplace of the Islamic jurist Abu al-Hasan Muhammad al-Maghari.

Places of Warship

One mosque

Nearby Wadies & Rivers

The village is situated north of Wadi al-Maghar.

Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands

Beyt El'azari

Village Before Nakba

The village stood on three slightly elevated hills in an otherwise flat area on the central coastal plain, on a highway leading northeast to Ramla. The military airport at 'Aqir was located a few km east of it, and Wadi al-Maghar bordered it to the south. Its name meant 'cave' in Arabic. The site of the village contained remains indicating ancient habitation; one of the three hills on which it was situated contained antiquities that presumably dated to the Canaanite era. In the early Islamic period it was a seasonal camping ground for the Arab tribe of Lakhm. The Muslim geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1228) said that the village was in the Ramla sub-disctrict and that the Islamic jurist Abu aI-Hasan Muhammad al-Maghari was born there in the eighth century A.D. In 1596, al-Maghar was a village in the nahiya of Gaza (liwa' of Gaza) with a population of 121. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, sesame, and fruits.

In the late nineteenth century, al-Maghar was a village built of adobe bricks and situated on the south slope of a hill. It was surrounded by pastureland and fig-tree orchards. In the first half of the twentieth century the houses were made of mud, cement, and stone. They were laid out in clusters, each comprised of closely built units, and spread along Wadi al-Maghar and along the various tracks crossing the village. Construction increased during the Mandate era, and houses were built on the two other hills-to the north and to the south-that rose on either side of the originally populated one, as well as along the road leading to the nearby village of Yibna (see photo). Most of the people in the village were Muslims. Al-Maghar had a mosque and a number of shops. The villagers invested about 5,000 Palestinian pounds to establish an elementary school on twenty-two dunums of land; 190 students were enrolled in the mid-1940s.

The village was well-provided with ground water and had good soil for agriculture, which was the villagers' chief occupation. They cultivated a variety of crops, including rainfed grain and irrigated vegetables and fruits. In 1944/45 a total of 1,772 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 9,075 dunums were allocated to cereals. Eighty-six dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, 22 dunums of which were for olives.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

Al-Maghar was attacked on 10 February 1948, according to a communiqué issued by the Arab militia forces in the Jaffa area that were commanded by Hasan Salama. The communiqué, quoted in the Palestinian newspaper Filastin, said only that a Jewish convoy approached the village, firing at villagers on both sides of the road; no casualty figures were given. The New York Times reported another attack on 29 March 1948, which was discovered only after the British police discovered the wreckage of an armored car that had blown during the attack on the village. The charred bodies of six Jewish soldiers were recovered from the wreckage, but no Arab casualties were reported.

The Haganah's Giv'ati Brigade invaded the village on 15 May, at the beginning of Operation Barak (see al-Batani al-Gharbi, Gaza sub-disctrict). The New York Times reported that Jewish forces heading south seized the 'Arab fortress' at this village, which commanded the road to the Negev. By the following month, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) had already begun to level the village. Israeli historian Benny Morris reports that on 10 June, high-ranking JNF official Yosef Weitz sent two employees to tour the coastal plain to determine which villages should be destroyed and which should be settled with Jews. One of them informed Weitz that he had made arrangements for the destruction of al-Maghar to begin the very next day. On 14 June, Weitz received a progress report of how the destruction was proceeding, and the following day he went to visit what remained of al-Maghar. 'Three tractors are completing its destruction,' he wrote later. 'I was surprised that nothing moved in me at the sight…. Not regret and not hatred, as this is the way of the world…. The dwellers of these mud-houses did not want us to exist here.'

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

The settlement of Beyt EI'azari (131139), built in 1948, is on village land

Village Today

A number of houses still stand: four of them are occupied by Jewish families and the rest are deserted. Some walls of demolished houses are still erect. Cactuses grow on the site (see photos).

Source

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

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

Pre-Nakba Aerial view of the village / صورة من الجو للقرية اخذت قبل النكبة

Display Name	Clan/Hamolah	Country of Residence
Raneem Alhour	-	Palestine
قاسم عمر عبدالرحمن الطويل	-	Turkey
مثقال	-	الخليل, فلسطين
رائد موسى محمد الطويل	الطويل	عمان, الاردن
ابو عمر	جبر	-
المشاغب	الغريز	غزة, النصيرات
angel	-	عمان
Mohd Alhour	alhour	Qatar
ابو يونس	الطويل	الغربية, جدة
المهاجر	الهور	مخيم العروب
السراج	السراج	القاهرة, مصر
mohammed ali al- taweel	al taweel	amman, jordan
ابو ربيع	الهور	-
ابنة الوطن	جبر	مخيم البريج, فلسطين
سنرجع يوما	-	طرابلس, ليبيا
HAZEM	-	AMMAN, AMMAN
Khaldoun Elias Jabr	Jabr	Amman, Jordan
ابو العز	حمدان	القطاع, البريج
أبو عامر	جبر	البريج, فلسطين
Alothmani	Al-Othmani	Kuwait
ابو عماد	جبر	, فلسطين
Ashraf Al hour	Al hour	Jordan, jordan
Mohammad Altaweel	Altaweel	Doha, Qatar
الفلسطيني انا	الطويل	عمان, الاردن
عاشقة الوطن الجريح	الطويل	عمان, الاردن
ABONASER	ALTAWILL	K.S.A
Abu Youssef	Al- Tawil	Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia
العسود	-	-
سامي حمد	حمد	Michigan, USA
hadeel hamad	hamad	jordan
احمد حمد	حمد	الجزائر
خليلية	خليلية	جبع
alhour	alhour	doha, qatar
Abu Hani	Al Sarraj	Palestine, Palestine
Omar El Taweel	-	Palestine, Palestine
Mohammed Taha	Alhour	-
khaled al Hour	Al Hour	doha, Qatar
majed shaheen	Palestine	-
Mohammed Hamad	Hamad	Saudi Arabia
abo siraj	jaber	palestine, palestine
Ahmad Al Hour	Al Hour	Amman, Jordan
Rami Al Hour	Taha	UAE
Mohammed Altawil	-	Ontario, Canada
FUAD	MUGHAR	CANADA, CANADA
bilal	ghani	ocupied teritories, palestine

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