Lazzaza ( ar, لزّازة, transliterated as ''Lazzâza'') was a Palestinian

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 of 230 in the northern Hula Valley next to the Hasbani River, located northwest of Safad.Khalidi, 1992, p.469.

Beit Hillel Beit Hillel ( he, בֵּית הִלֵּל) is a moshav in northern Israel. Located on the west bank of the Hasbani River, about 5 kilometres from Kiryat Shmona, its 3,500 dunams fall under the jurisdiction of Mevo'ot HaHermon Regional Council. As ...

subsequently expanded onto the land.

History

In 1881, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described Lazzaza, while under Ottoman rule, as a village of 70 people built of

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

bricks and situated on a plain near a river.Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p
89
Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p.469.

British Mandate era

It was incorporated into the British Mandate of Palestine in 1922. Under the British, Lazzaza had an elementary school, in which 26 students were enrolled in 1945. The residents, mostly

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, took advantage of the village's fertile lands, and agriculture became the basis of its economy. The primarily cultivated crops were onions, corn, and fruits, but the beehives were also kept, in addition to some livestock. Some of Lazzaza's inhabitants also fished in the Hasbani River. In the

1931 census of Palestine The 1931 census of Palestine was the second census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate for Palestine. It was carried out on 18 November 1931 under the direction of Major E. Mills after the 1922 census of Palestine. * Census of P ...

the population of Lazaza was 176, all Muslims, in a total of 39 houses.Mills, 1932, p
108
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, Lazzaza was counted with the nearby Jewish settlement of

which together constituted a population of 330; 230 were Muslims of Lazzaza, the remaining 100 were Jewish of Beit Hillel. Types of land use in

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 in the village in 1945:Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
119
/ref>Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
169
/ref> The land ownership of the village before occupation in

1948, aftermath

The Arabs of Lazzaza fled their village 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 May 21, 1948. The village was not attacked by

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, and the probable cause of its depopulation was a "whispering campaign" devised by

Palmach The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Companies") was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach ...

commander Yigal Allon during Operation Yiftach, in which rumor would spread about massive Jewish reinforcements approaching the

Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...

. According to Walid Khalidi, "only a few scattered houses remain on the village site", and that the residents of Beit Hillel cultivate the surrounding fields.

References

Bibliography

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External links