Sajad ( ar, سجد) was a Palestinian village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was located sixteen kilometers south of Ramla. It was depopulated during the

1948 Arab–Israeli war The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...

.Khalidi, 1992, p. 410

History

In 1838, ''Sejad'' was noted as a place "in ruins or deserted."Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
120
/ref> The village of Sajad was the site of a railway station built by the French in Ottoman era

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

. In August 1892, the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway service was initiated; the train stopped in Sajad. The station was closed after a new railway line and station were built at nearby Wadi Sarar in 1915.Gilbar, 1990, p
209
/ref> The land which the villagers cultivated, was at one time owned by the Ottoman sultan Abd al-Hamid, but it was taken from him by the Ottoman government in 1908. After this, the village land was classified as

jiftlik Al-Jiftlik ( ar, الجفتلك) is a Palestinian village in the Jericho Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the West Bank, located 33 kilometers north of Jericho. Al Jiftlik is bordered by the Jordan River to the east. Nearby Palestinian ...

land, owned by the government but leased on a long-term basis to the villagers.

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 by the British Mandate authorities, Sajad had a population of 221

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 ...

s,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p
21
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 300, still all Muslims, in a total of 66 houses.Mills, 1932, p
23
The village did not have a school on its own, but in 1945–46 it started sending its students to a school in Qazaza, a village to the southeast. In the 1945 statistics the population was 370, all Muslims, while the total land area was 2,795

dunam 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 ...

s, according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
68
/ref> Of this, a total of 1,687

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 were used for cereals, while 19 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
167
/ref>

1948 and after

A military operation planned by the pre-state

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i forces against the village of Sajad as part of

Operation Nahshon Operation Nachshon ( he, מבצע נחשון, ''Mivtza Nahshon'') was a Jewish military operation during the 1948 war. Lasting from 5–16 April 1948, its objective was to break the Siege of Jerusalem by opening the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road ...

is recorded in a document from the Nahshon Headquarters to the 52nd Battalion, dated 15 April 1948.Morris, 2004, pp.
235293
��294 According to

Benny Morris Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...

, "Battalion 3 was ordered to annihilate and destroy the village of Sajad." According to Khalidi the village was taken on 9–10 July as part of the

Givati Brigade The 84th "Givati" Brigade ( he, חֲטִיבַת גִּבְעָתִי, , "Hill Brigade" or "Highland Brigade") is an Israel Defense Forces infantry brigade. Until 2005, the Brigade used to be stationed within the Gaza Strip and primarily perf ...

's Operation An-Far. There are

Palestinian refugees Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–49 Palestine war (1948 Palestinian exodus) and the Six-Day War (1967 Palestinian exodu ...

from Sajad who still long to return to the site of their former village and who express deep distrust of other Arab countries in which they live as refugees. . For example, Hassan, a refugee living in the Marka camp in

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

stated: "We do not have any confidence in the Arabs and they are

traitor Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

s, sometimes I get so depressed about it, I do not even want to talk to my children about what happened to my village Sajad in Palestine ... I prefer to live in a tent in my homeland than a castle anywhere else ... because I will always feel that the castle is not really mine."Chatty and Hunt, 2005, p
96
/ref> According to Walid Khalidi, the site of the former village of Sajad is inaccessible, as it is now a military zone in Israel.

References

Bibliography

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External links