Dayr Tarif

Dayr Tarif
Dayr Tarif
Name meaning The monastery of Tureif ("the end")[1]
Also spelled Deir Tarif
Subdistrict Ramle
Coordinates 31°59′25.6″N 34°56′23.1″E / 31.990444°N 34.939750°E / 31.990444; 34.939750Coordinates: 31°59′25.6″N 34°56′23.1″E / 31.990444°N 34.939750°E / 31.990444; 34.939750
Palestine grid 144/155
Population 2030 (1948)
Date of depopulation July 10, 1948[2]
Cause(s) of depopulation Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities Beit Arif[3]

Dayr Tarif was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 10, 1948.

History

The Romans referred to Dayr Tarif as Bethariph. According to SWP; "South-west of the village are traces of ruins, cisterns, and 'rock-sunk' tombs, evidently Christian again, as connected with a monastery."[4] Ceramics from the Byzantine era have been found here.[5]

Ottoman era

Dayr Tarif, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596, the village was located in the nahiya (subdistrict) of al-Ramla under the Liwa of Gaza, with a population of 49 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, sesame, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 9,000 akçe.[6]

In 1870, Victor Guérin estimated that the village had 400 inhabitants. He further noted ancient columns by the mosque.[7]

In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village as "A very small hamlet at the edge of the plain. This would seem to be the place called Betariph in the 'Onomasticon,' near Diospolis (Lod)."[8]

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Dayr Tarif had a population of 836; all Muslims,[9] increasing in the 1931 census to 1,246, still all Muslims, in a total of 291 houses.[10]

An elementary school was founded in 1920 and by 1947, it had 171 students.[3]

In 1945 the population was 1,750, all Muslims,[11] while the total land area was 8,756 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[12] Of this, a total of 1,410 dunams were used for citrus and bananas, 486 dunums were plantations or irrigated, 5,989 for cereals,[13] while 51 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.[14]

1948, aftermath

Dayr Tarif was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 10, 1948 by the Ninth Commando Battalion of the Armored Brigade of Operation Dani. The village, with a population of 2,030, was defended by the Jordanian Army, but Dayr Tarif was mostly destroyed with the exception of its school, which servers as a stable. After it was conquered, the Palestinian population was expelled. The IDF asked for permission to destroy this village and a cluster of over a dozen others, after the commander Zvi Ayalon noted that they lacked sufficient manpower to occupy the area.[3][15]

A Polish aid worker who has worked in infrastructural aid programs to create cisterns in the Hebron Hills for the Palestinian population, Kamil Qandil, is a descendant on his father's side of a family that suffered expulsion from this village. He has since been denied entry into Israel and the West Bank.[16]

References

  1. ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 229
  2. ↑ Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #221. Also gives cause of depopulation.
  3. 1 2 3 Khalidi, 1992, p. 379
  4. ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 320
  5. ↑ Dauphin, 1998, p. 828
  6. ↑ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 151
  7. ↑ Guérin, 1875, p. 391
  8. ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 297
  9. ↑ Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p. 22
  10. ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 20
  11. ↑ Department of Statistics, 1945, p.29
  12. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 66
  13. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 115
  14. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 165
  15. ↑ Morris, 2004, p. 354
  16. ↑ Amira Hass, "An anthropological experience in Israeli detention", Haaretz, 22 September 2013.

Bibliography

External links

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