Saris, Jerusalem

For other uses, see Saris, Jerusalem (disambiguation).

Saris (Template:Lang-ar) was a Palestinian Arab village that was depopulated during the major offensive launched by the Haganah on 6th April 1948. Called Operation Nachshon, and launched before the British had left Palestine, its objective was to capture villages between Jerusalem and the coastal plain.

History

Yaqut al-Hamawi noted about Saris in the 1220s that it was "a village of the district round Jerusalem. It lies half-way between Jerusalem and Ar Ramlah, and 4 hours from either place".

During Ottoman rule in Palestine, in 1596, Saris was a village in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jerusalem under the liwa' (district) of Jerusalem and it had a population of 292. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, olives fruit and carob, as well as on goats, beehives and vineyards.

In the late 19th century, Saris was described as being located on top of a hill, with olive trees growing below the village.

In 1944/45 its population was 560, with 3,677 dunums (over 900 acres) used for cereals and 366 dunums (≈90 acres) of orchards and irregated land.

1948 and after

On 13 April, before the village was attacked, Israel Galili wrote to Yosef Weitz of the JNF asking for a settlement to be established at Saris 'as soon as possible.'

The Scotsman, Saturday 17 April 1948, reported 'Jews destroyed a mosque, village school, and 25 houses, killing three women in an attack on the Arab village of Saris early today (16th). There were about 500 attackers.' The New York Times carried the same report and gave the number of Arab dead as seven. A Haganah statement is quoted as saying that the battalion stayed in the village for about five hours, blowing up 25 buildings and burning others.

The village of Shoresh was established 1 km south west of the remains of Saris in 1948. Sho'eva was set up 0.5 km north east of the site in 1950. Both are on village land.

The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi described the village land in 1992: "The site is covered with stone rubble; iron bars protrude from the collapsed roofs. There are many open wells and several caves with arched roofs. A large number of trees, including cypress, fig, and almond trees, grow on the site. An abandoned grove of almond trees is located on the eastern side. In the middle of the slope are the remains of an artificial pool. The village cemetery, surrounded by trees, is located southwest of the site. It contains several large tombs, one of which is surrounded by a small, roofless enclosure; an almond tree grows in the center. The Shoresh forest, named after the Israeli settlement, was established by the youth of the Jewish National Fund in Johannesburg, South Africa. Another forest in the area, dedicated to several notable Jews, have been planted under the auspices of the Center for European Jewry.

References

Bibliography

• Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Conder, Claude Reignier; 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.
• Hadawi, Sami (1970), Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center
• 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.
• Khalidi, Walid (1992), All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, ISBN 0-88728-224-5
• Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas (PDF). Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
• Morris, Benny (2004), The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-00967-7
• 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.
• le Strange, Guy (1890). Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

External links

• SWP map 17
• Welcome to Saris
• Saris, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center