Abu al-Fadl ( ar, أبو الفضل/السطرية) was a Palestinian village in the Ramle Subdistrict, about northwest of Ramla in, what was until 1948, Mandatory Palestine. The village was also known as ''al-Satariyya''. In 1945/44, the village had a population of 510.

Location

The village was located just south of Sarafand al-Amar, in the Ramleh District.

History

The village land was owned by the

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

ic waqf of

Fadl ibn Abbas Faḍl ibn ʿAbbās (Arabic: فضل بن عباس; c. 614 – 639 CE) was a brother of Abd Allah ibn Abbas and was a cousin of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Biography Fadl was the eldest son of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of Muhammad and ...

, possibly a cousin of the

Islamic prophet Prophets in Islam ( ar, الأنبياء في الإسلام, translit=al-ʾAnbiyāʾ fī al-ʾIslām) are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God in Islam, God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. So ...

Muhammad, after whom the village was named.Khalidi, 1992, p. 356. In the Palestine Index Gazetteer, Abu al-Fadl was classified as a hamlet. At the time of the 1931 census, Abu al-Fadl had a population of 1565 residents, all

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. (Noted under the name of ''Es Sautariya'').Mills, 1932, p
25
/ref> In the 1945 statistics the village had a population of 510 Muslims. A total of 818

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 village land was used for citrus and

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

s, 1,035 dunums were used for cereals, and 822 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.

1948 and aftermath

In February 1948 it was reported that ten Arabs, one of them a woman, were murdered ("probably") by

IZL Irgun • Etzel , image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...

gunmen, in a grove, where they apparently worked, near the village. This was one of the massacres of Palestinian civilians which was said to "erode Arab morale". The villagers probably left their homes in the second week of May 1948 during

Operation Barak Operation Barak ( he, מבצע ברק, ''Mivtza Barak'', lit. ''Operation Lightning'') was a Haganah offensive launched just before the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. It was part of Plan Dalet. Its objective was to capture villages Nort ...

. This campaign was undertaken by 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 ...

commanded by Shimon Avidan; its objective was to clear the villages south of Tel Aviv and "cause a wandering of the inhabitants of the smaller settlements in the area". Each ground assault started with a mortar bombardment, followed by the expulsion of the remaining residents and the demolition of houses. The village was probably permanently occupied during the first stage of Operation Danny, 9–12 July 1948. This offensive, commanded by Yitzhak Rabin, resulted in the expulsion of some 70,000 people from the neighbouring towns of

Lod Lod ( he, לוד, or fully vocalized ; ar, اللد, al-Lidd or ), also known as Lydda ( grc, Λύδδα), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephe ...

and al-Ramla.Morris, 2004, pp
203
211. The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, described the place in 1992: "Of the original village houses, no more than five still stand, deserted and nearly collapsing. One of these houses, located at the edge of a citrus grove, is made of cement blocks, with rectangular doors and windows and a tiled, sloping roof. Another house, composed of three units, is located in the middle of a citrus grove. A few cypress trees, castor oil (ricinus) plants, and cactuses grow on the site, and Israeli buildings have been constructed nearby. The surrounding lands are cultivated by Israelis." The Israeli moshav of

Sitria Sitria ( he, סִתְרִיָה) is a moshav in central Israel. Located in the Shfela near Rehovot, it falls under the jurisdiction of Gezer Regional Council. In it had a population of . History The moshav was founded on Lag BaOmer in 1949 on ...

was established on village farmlands in 1949,

Talmei Menashe Talmei Menashe ( he, תלמי מנשה) is a moshav in central Israel. It was established in 1953 by the General Zionists movement. The moshav encompasses 1,800 dunams and consists of 62 farms, 5 auxiliary farms, and a residential annex ("Harch ...

was established on the site of the village proper in 1953, and some of Be'er Ya'akov and the eastern reaches of

Rishon LeZion Rishon LeZion ( he, רִאשׁוֹן לְצִיּוֹן , ''lit.'' First to Zion, Arabic: راشون لتسيون) is a city in Israel, located along the central Israeli coastal plain south of Tel Aviv. It is part of the Gush Dan metropolitan ar ...

are partially on the village's land.

References

Bibliography

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External links