Shilta 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 Ramle Subdistrict of

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

. Located on a hill, It was probably settled in the 19th century. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War on July 18, 1948, by the First Battalion of the

Yiftach Brigade The Yiftach Brigade (also known as the Yiftah Brigade, the 11th Brigade in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War) was an Israeli infantry brigade. It included two Palmach battalions (the 1st and 7th), and later also the 2nd, which was transferred from the ...

in the

Operation Danny Operation Danny ( he, מבצע דני, ''Mivtza Dani'') was an Israeli military offensive launched at the end of the first truce of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The objectives were to capture territory east of Tel Aviv and then to push inland and ...

. It was located 15 km east 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 ...

History

Persian to Mamluk periods

Shards from the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

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 ...

periods have been found here, and possible shards from the

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

and the Crusader periods.Finkelstein, et al., 1997, p. 135 During the Crusader era the place was called ''Kefrscilta'' or ''Capharscylta''. Shards from the

Mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...

period have also been found, though Finkelstein label this find questionable.

Ottoman period

The village likely saw settlement during the 19th century, given its absence from the Early Ottoman defter. In 1870,

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Min ...

visited and noted that the village was "reduced to a few houses, it succeeded an ancient locality, as is proved by several cisterns dug in the middle of a rocky platform flattened by the man's hand, and a number of stones scattered here and there or embedded in Muslim buildings." An Ottoman village list from about the same year showed that ''Schi’ra'' had 13 houses and a population of 41, though the population count included men, only. It was noted that it was located east of

Jimzu Jimzu ( ar, جمزو), also known as Gimzo (meaning "sycamore plantation"), was a Palestinian village, located three miles southeast of Lydda. Under the 1947 UN Partition Plan of Mandatory Palestine, Jimzu was to form part of the proposed Arab st ...

.Socin, 1879, p
161
/ref>

British Mandate

According to a

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

conducted in 1931 by the British Mandate authorities, Shilta had a population of 22 inhabitants, in 7 houses.Mills, 1932, p
23
/ref> The village had a mosque at the north end of the village, and there was a shrine of Shayk Ahmad al Shiltawi near it. In the 1945 statistics, the village had a population of 100 Muslims, with a total of 5,380 dunums of land. Of this, 27 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 2,159 dunums were used for cereals, while 6 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> File:Shilta 1944.jpg, Shilta 1944 1:20,000 from 1919 survey File:Burj 1945.jpg, Shilta 1945 1:250,000

1948 war; Israel

Shilta was depopulated after a military assault July 15–16, 1948. Israel established Shilat and Kfar Ruth on village land in 1977. In 1992, the village site was described: "The site is overgrown with mountain flora, including long grasses and

pomegranate The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punicoideae, that grows between tall. The pomegranate was originally described throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean re ...

, almond, and

carob The carob ( ; ''Ceratonia siliqua'') is a flowering evergreen tree or shrub in the Caesalpinioideae sub-family of the legume family, Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated for its edible fruit pods, and as an ornamental tree in gardens and lands ...

trees. Some of the

cactus A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Gree ...

hedges survive, and several wells also are visible. Israeli have built greenhouses for growing flowers, [] Israeli settlement houses have been built on village land."

References

Bibliography

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External links

Welcome To Shilta Shilta

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 14
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Ramla