Tabsur ( ar, تبصر), also Khirbat 'Azzun ( ar, خربة عزون), 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 ...
village located 19 kilometres southwest of
Tulkarm
Tulkarm, Tulkarem or Tull Keram ( ar, طولكرم, ''Ṭūlkarm'') is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located in the Tulkarm Governorate of the State of Palestine. The Israeli city of Netanya is to the west, and the Palestinian cities of N ...
. In 1931, the village had 218 houses and an elementary school for boys.
Its Palestinian population was expelled 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 ...
.
History
Tabsur was established before the middle of the nineteenth-century on an archaeological site.
[Khalidi, 1992, p. 561] The village contained archaeological remains, including the foundations of a building, a well, fragments of
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
pavement, and tombs.
[Khalidi, 1992, p. 562]
In the late nineteenth century, Tabsur was described as a moderate-sized
hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
with a well to the north. It was later classified as a hamlet by the ''Palestine Index Gazetteer''.
British Mandate era
During the
British Mandate an elementary school for boys was established in the village. The village also had a few shops.
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 ...
there were 709 villagers; 700 Muslims and 9 Christians, (where the Christians were all Orthodox,) increasing in
1931 census to 994; 980 Muslims and 14 Christians, in 218 houses.
In the
1944/45 statistics, a total of 1,602
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 ...
were allocated to cereals, while 24 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.
[Department of Statistics, 1945, p]
21
/ref> 29 dunams were classified as built-up (urban) area.[Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p]
177
/ref>
1948, aftermath
The Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...
of Tabsur were ordered to leave by the Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
on 3 April 1948, as part of Haganas policy of clearing out the Arab villages on the coastal plain.[Morris, 2004, p]
245
/ref> The villagers left on 16 April 1948.[
]Ra'anana
Ra'anana ( he, רַעֲנָנָּה, lit. "Fresh") is a city in the southern Sharon Plain of the Central District of Israel. It was founded in 1922 as an American-Jewish settlement, 1 km south of the village of Tabsur, where an important ...
was established south of Tabsur in 1921. Now a city, some of its suburbs have expanded into land that once belonged to the village. Batzra
Batzra ( he, בָּצְרָה) is a moshav in central Israel. Located in the Sharon plain near Ra'anana, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaSharon Regional Council. In it had a population of .
History
Before the 20th century the area f ...
, founded in 1946 on village land, lies to the north.
In 1992, the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi ( ar, وليد خالدي, born 1925 in Jerusalem) is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian people, Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the 1948 Palestinian exodus, Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the ...
wrote: "The village has been completely covered with Israeli citrus orchards, making it difficult to distinguish from the surrounding lands. Citrus and cypress trees grow on the village land."
The estimated number of Palestinian refugee
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 exo ...
s from Tabsur in 1998 was 2,406.[
]
See also
*Azzun
Azzun (also spelled Azzoun) (, from the root word عز ''′izz'' which means honor or esteem) is a Palestinian town in Qalqilya Governorate in the northern West Bank, located 9 kilometers east of Qalqilya and 24 kilometers south of Tulkarm. Acc ...
* Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel
References
Bibliography
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External links
Welcome To Tabsur
Tabsur (Khirbet 'Azzun)
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 10
IAA
Wikimedia commons
{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War
Arab villages depopulated prior to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
District of Tulkarm