Khirbat al-Sawamir was a

Palestinian Arab 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 in the Haifa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on May 22, 1948. It was located 22 kilometres south of

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

History

Burial places cut into rock, 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 at Khirbat al-Sawamir.

Ottoman era

Khirbat al-Sawamir was incorporated into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers under the name of ''Sawamir'', as being in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' ("subdistrict") of

Ramla Ramla or Ramle ( he, רַמְלָה, ''Ramlā''; ar, الرملة, ''ar-Ramleh'') is a city in the Central District of Israel. Today, Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with both a significant Jewish and Arab populations. The city was f ...

, which was under the administration of the '' liwa'' ("district") of Gaza. It had a population of 3 household,Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 158 an estimated 17 persons,Khalidi, 1992, p. 190 who were all

Muslims 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 ...

. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 5,500 akçe. The village appeared, though misplaced, under the name of ''Sawama'' on the map that

Pierre Jacotin Pierre Jacotin (1765–1827) was the director of the survey for the '' Carte de l'Égypte (Description de l'Égypte)'', the first triangulation-based map of Egypt, Syria and Palestine. The maps were surveyed in 1799-1800 during the campaign in E ...

compiled during Napoleon's invasion of 1799. In 1859, the population was estimated to be 120 persons, with 15

feddan A feddan ( ar, فدّان, faddān) is a unit of area used in Egypt, Sudan, Syria, and the Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the fedda ...

s of cultivated area.Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II,
43
/ref> In 1882, 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 ''Suamir'' as a small adobe village at the edge of the plain, with a

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

to the west. In the early twentieth century, travelers noted that the village was better built that the usual

Fellahin A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or Agriculture, agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic language, Arabic wor ...

village.

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Al Sawamer'' had a population of 17 Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Haifa, p
34
/ref> In the 1931 census, the population was counted with that of

Ayn Ghazal Ayn Ghazal ( ar, عين غزال, "Spring of the Gazelle") was a Palestinian Arab village located south of Haifa. Depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War as a result of an Israeli military assault during Operation Shoter, the village was ...

, and together they had 1,439 Muslims in 247 houses.Mills, 1932, p
90
/ref> In the

Village Statistics, 1945 Village Statistics, 1945 was a joint survey work prepared by the Government Office of Statistics and the Department of Lands of the British Mandate Government for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine which acted in early 1946. The ...

, the name of the village was not mentioned.

1948, aftermath

Following the 1948 war the area was incorporated into the State of Israel. The moshav of Ofer was established in 1950 partly on the land of Khirbat al-Sawamir, and partly on the land of

. In 1992 the village site was described: "The ruins of two walls (formerly parts of a building) are visible at the site, which has been fenced in with barbed wire. Pine trees occupy much of the land on the site, and pomegranate and fig trees and cactuses are scattered throughout. The surrounding coastal lands are used by Israeli farmers for growing vegetables and fruit, particularly bananas."

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * *Mülinen, Egbert Friedrich von 1908,
Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Karmels
' "Separateabdruck aus der Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palëstina-Vereins Band XXX (1907) Seite 117-207 und Band XXXI (1908) Seite 1-258." *

External links

al-Sawamir

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 8
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Haifa