Hirbiya () was a Palestinian Arab village in the Gaza Subdistrict, located northeast of Gaza along the southern coastal plain of

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

. Situated where the

Battle of La Forbie A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force co ...

took place in 1244, it was depopulated during the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

.Khalidi, 1992, p.101.

History

Prehistory

Bronze Age

Settlement at the site of Hirbiya dates back to the

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite period.

Crusader period

It was known as "Forbie" to the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

. In 1226, the

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

geographer

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) () was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th–13th centuries). He is known for his , an influential work on geography con ...

called it "Firbiya" (or "Farbaya") and noted that it was within the administrative jurisdiction of

Ascalon Ascalon or Ashkelon was an ancient Near East port city on the Mediterranean coast of the southern Levant of high historical and archaeological significance. Its remains are located in the archaeological site of Tel Ashkelon, within the city limi ...

. The village was the site of a crucial battle, called the

, between the Crusaders and the

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...

s, which ended in a decisive

victory. Historians consider it second in strategic significance only to the

Battle of Hattin The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between the Crusader states of the Levant and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the shape of the nearby extinct volcano of ...

in 1187. A circular

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth 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 ...

, made of masonry, and the foundations of a small tower were still found there in the late 19th century.

Ottoman period

Hirbiya was incorporated into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in 1517 with the rest of

, by the 1596 tax records it was located in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, 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 divisi ...

'' (subdistrict) of Gaza, a part of the Liwa of Gaza. It had a population of 160 households and 15 bachelors, an estimated 963 person, all

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on various products, including wheat, barley, grapes, fruit, and cotton; a total of 35,500

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

. All of the revenue went to a

waqf A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...

. During the 17th and 18th centuries, settlement in the region declined due to

nomad Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

ic attacks on local communities. The residents of abandoned villages moved to elsewhere but the land continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages. In 1838 Hirbiya was described as part of the Gaza district. An Ottoman village list from 1870 showed that ''Herbija'' had 58 houses and a population of 206, which included only men. In the late 19th century Hirbiya had a rectangular layout, although some of its adobe brick houses were scattered in surrounding orchards. The village was surrounded by a pond, a well, and several gardens. To the south were remains of the Crusader fortress.

British mandate

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 divis ...

, conducted by the British mandate authorities, ''Herbia'' had a population of 1,037 inhabitants, consisting of 1031 Muslims and 6 Orthodox Christians, The population had increased in the 1931 census to 1,520; 1,510 Muslims and 10 Christians, in 234 houses.Mills, 1932, p
3
Hirbiya had a mosque and elementary school, both located in the village center. The school opened in 1922 and had an enrollment of 124 students in the 1940s. In

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II, the fall of Nazi Germany, and the Empire of Japan. It is also the year concentration camps were liberated and the only year in which atomic weapons have been used in combat. Events World War II will be ...

Hiribya had a population of 2,300; 2,200 Muslims, 40 Christians and 60 Jews, with a total of 22,312

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 2,765 dunams were used for citrus and bananas, 6,106 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 2,037 for cereals, while 92 dunams were built-up land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
137
/ref>

1948 war

Hirbiya was targeted in October 1948 during

Operation Yoav Operation Yoav (also called Operation Ten Plagues or Operation Yo'av) was an Israeli military operation carried out from 15–22 October 1948 in the Negev Desert, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Its goal was to drive a wedge between the Eg ...

, coming under aerial bombardment on October 15–16. A planned attack was called off when Israeli forces learned that a large

Egyptian Army The Egyptian Army (), officially the Egyptian Ground Forces (), is the land warfare branch (and largest service branch) of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Until the declaration of the Republic and the abolishment of the monarchy on 18 June 1953, it w ...

force was quartered in the village. Khalidi speculates that the village fell to Israeli forces in early November, shortly after the occupation of Ascalon.

Israel

Following the war the area was incorporated into the

State of Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and two

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

im, Zikim and Karmia, were established on village lands in 1949 and 1950 respectively.

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

Yad Mordechai, established in 1943, expanded onto Hirbiya's lands. According to Khalidi, only the mosque, which was used as a warehouse, and one residential building, remain from earlier times.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Welcome To HiribyaHiribya
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 19
IAAWikimedia commons

from Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War District of Gaza Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War