Ni'ilya
Ni'ilya
نعليا | ||
---|---|---|
Etymology: from personal name, meaning either "in the form of a horse-shoe" or from a word meaning "sterile, hard, ground"[1] | ||
Geopolitical entity Mandatory Palestine | | |
Subdistrict | Gaza | |
Date of depopulation | November 4–5, 1948[4] | |
Area | ||
• Total | 5,233 dunams (5.233 km2 or 2.020 sq mi) | |
Population (1945) | ||
• Total | 1,310[2][3] | |
Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces | |
Current Localities | Ashkelon[5] |
Ni'ilya was a
History
Ceramics from the Byzantine era have been found here.[6] The village had tombs of people who were killed while battling the Crusades, according to the villagers.[5] The local mosque had an inscription dating to 645 AH (1247 CE).[7]
Ni'ilya was inhabited in the 15th century. Mamluk records mention its endowment as a waqf.[8]
Ottoman era
Ni'ilya was incorporated into the
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the area of Ni'ilya experienced a significant process of settlement decline due to nomadic pressures on local communities. The residents of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, but the land continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages.[11] Pierre Jacotin may have noted it as an unnamed village on his map from 1799.[12]
In 1863 Victor Guérin found it to be a village with 300 inhabitants. The village had a mosque which contained ancient fragments, such as trunks of marble columns.[13] An Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed that Na'lija had 39 houses and a population of 111, though the population count included men, only.[14][15]
In 1883 the
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Na'lia had a population of 687 inhabitants, all Muslims,[17] while in the 1931 census, Na'lia had 169 occupied houses and a population of 893 Muslims.[18]
In the 1930s the village mosque was inspected by
In the 1945 statistics this had increased to 1310 Muslims,[2] with a total of 5,233 dunams of land.[3] Cultivated lands in the village in 1944–45 included a total of 1,084 dunums used for citrus and bananas, 2,215 dunums for cereals. An additional 1,436 dunums were irrigated or used for plantations,[19] while 29 dunams were built-up, urban, land.[20]
Ni'ilya students attended school in al-Majdal. A school was built in the village in 1948 shortly before the war but never opened.[5] The village also had a mosque.[5]
1948, aftermath
Ni'ilya was one of the villages named in the orders to the
Since the war, Ashkelon has expanded onto village land.[5]
In 1992, the village site was described: "The village has been obliterated, and the site is overgrown with wild plants and a few sycamore trees. One house that had probably been built in a fruit orchard still stands and is currently inhabited by a Palestinian family. It has a flat roof and rectangular windows and door. The land in the vicinity is cultivated by Israeli farmers."[5]
References
- ^ Palmer, 1881, p. 376
- ^ a b Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 32
- ^ a b c Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 46
- ^ Morris, 2004, village p. xix, #309, Also gives the cause for depopulation
- ^ a b c d e f Khalidi, 1992, p. 129
- ^ Dauphin, 1998, p. 873
- ^ a b Petersen, 2001, p. 245
- ISSN 0305-7488.
- ^ a b Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 144
- ^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 144, as estimated in Khalidi, 1992, p. 129
- .
- ^ Karmon, 1960, p. 173 Archived 2019-12-22 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Guérin, 1869, p. 172
- ^ Socin, 1879, p. 158
- ^ Hartmann, 1883, p. 130, noted 37 houses
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 259
- ^ Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Gaza, p. 8
- ^ Mills, 1932, p. 5
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 88
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 138
- ^ Coastal Plain District HQ to battalions 151 and '1 Volunteers', etc., 19:55 hours, 25 Nov. 1948, IDFA (=Israeli Defence Forces and Defence Ministry Archive) 6308\49\\141. Cited in Morris, 2004, p. 517
- ^ Coastal Plain HQ to Southern Front\Operations, 30 Nov. 1948, IDFA 1978\50\\1; and Southern Front\Operations to General Staff Divisions, 2. Dec. 1948, IDFA 922\75\\1025. Cited in Morris, 2004, p. 518
Bibliography
- Barron, J.B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
- Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1883). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 3. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- ISBN 0-860549-05-4.
- Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
- Guérin, V. (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 1: Judee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
- Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
- Hartmann, M. (1883). "Die Ortschaftenliste des Liwa Jerusalem in dem türkischen Staatskalender für Syrien auf das Jahr 1288 der Flucht (1871)". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 6: 102–149.
- Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
- Karmon, Y. (1960). "An Analysis of Jacotin's Map of Palestine" (PDF). Israel Exploration Journal. 10 (3, 4): 155–173, 244–253. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-12-22. Retrieved 2015-03-26.
- ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
- Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
- ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
- Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Petersen, Andrew (2001). A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology). Vol. I. ISBN 978-0-19-727011-0.
- Socin, A. (1879). "Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 2: 135–163.
See also
- Welcome To Ni'ilya
- Ni'ilya, Zochrot
- Survey of Western Palestine, Map 20: IAA, Wikimedia commons
- Ni'ilya from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center