Dayr al-Hawa ( ar, دير الهوا) was a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

village in the Jerusalem Subdistrict. The village was depopulated during the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

on October 19, 1948, by the Fourth Battalion of the Har'el Brigade of

Operation ha-Har Operation Ha-Har ( he, ההר, ''The Mountain''), or Operation El Ha-Har, was an Israeli Defence Forces campaign against villages southwest of Jerusalem launched at the end of October 1948. The operation lasted from 19 to 24 October and was carr ...

. It was located 18.5 km west of

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

History

Coins and ceramics from the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

era have been found here.

Ottoman era

In 1838, Edward Robinson called it a "lofty" village, on the brink of a valley. It was further noted as a

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

village, located in the District of ''el-Arkub'', southwest of Jerusalem. In 1856 the village was named ''D. el Hawa'' on Kiepert's map of Palestine published that year.

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Mino ...

, visiting the village in 1863, wrote that ''Dayr al-Hawa'' "probably owes its name, ''monastery of the wind'', to its high position". An Ottoman village list from around 1870 showed that ''Der el-Haw''a had 32 houses and a population of 103, though the population count included men, only. In 1883, the PEF's ''

Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the Survey of Western Palestine and in 1880 for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. The survey was carried out after the ...

'' described it as "a village standing high, on a knoll rising from a high ridge, with a deep valley to the north. It has several high houses in it. On the west is a good spring. The ground is covered with brushwood all round the place."Conder and Kitchener, 1883, p
24
/ref> In 1896 the population of ''Der el-hawa'' was estimated to be about 162 persons.

British Mandate era

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...

conducted i by the British Mandate authorities, ''Dair al-Hawa'' had a population of 38 residents; all

s,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p
21
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 47 inhabitants, in 11 houses.Mills, 1932, p
19
/ref> In the 1945 statistics the village had a population of 60 Muslims, with a total of 5,907

dunums A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...

of land. Of this, 58 dunams were for irrigable land or plantations, 1,565 for

cereals A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grain crops are grown in greater quantities and provide more food en ...

, while 4 dunams were built-up land. A

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

was located in the western part of the village and there was a

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy sacred space, space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daem ...

for a local

sage Sage or SAGE may refer to: Plants * ''Salvia officinalis'', common sage, a small evergreen subshrub used as a culinary herb ** Lamiaceae, a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint or deadnettle or sage family ** ''Salvia'', a large ...

known as al-Shaykh Sulayman. Near the ruins of the old village now stands the Israeli

moshav A moshav ( he, מוֹשָׁב, plural ', lit. ''settlement, village'') is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 an ...

, Nes Harim,Zvi Dror, ''Har'el: Palmach brigade in Jerusalem'', Ha-kibbutz ha-meuchad 2005, p. 269 (Hebrew) however, it is not on village land. (It is on the land of

Bayt 'Itab Bayt ʿIṭāb ( ar, بيت عطاب) was a Palestinian Arab village located in the Jerusalem Subdistrict. The village is believed to have been inhabited since biblical times. An ancient tunnel which led to the village spring is associated with s ...

.)Khalidi, 1992, p. 286 During the 1948 it was defended by the local militia and the Egyptian Army/

Muslim Brotherhood The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( ar, جماعة الإخوان المسلمين'' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan ...

Battalion. File:Deiraban 1945.jpg, Dayr al-Hawa, Mandate survey, 1:20,000 File:Allar 1945.jpg, Dayr al-Hawa, 1945, 1:20,000

References

Bibliography

* * (p
219
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Dayr al-Hawa

Zochrot Zochrot ( he, זוכרות; "Remembering"; ar, ذاكرات; "Memories") is an Israeli nonprofit organization founded in 2002. Based in Tel Aviv, its aim is to promote awareness of the Palestinian ''Nakba'' ("Catastrophe"), including the 1948 Pa ...

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17
IAA

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Dayr Al-Hawa
from the

Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center () is a leading Palestinian arts and culture organization that aims to create a pluralistic, critical liberating culture through research, query, and participation, and that provides an open space for the community ...