Huj, Gaza
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Huj () was a Palestinian
Arab Arabs (,  , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...
village located northeast of
Gaza City Gaza City, also called Gaza, is a city in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, and the capital of the Gaza Governorate. Located on the Mediterranean coast, southwest of Jerusalem, it was home to Port of Gaza, Palestine's only port. With a population of ...
. Identified as the site of the ancient
Philistine Philistines (; Septuagint, LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philist ...
town of Oga,Oga - (Huj)
Studium Biblicum Franciscanum - Jerusalem. 2000-12-19.
the modern village was founded by the
Ottomans Ottoman may refer to: * Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire * Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II" * Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...
in the early 19th century. Situated in a hilly area on the northern edge of the
Negev Desert The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...
, 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) ...
.


History

Architectural remains from the
Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
, Persian and
Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
eras have been found here.Oron, 2017
Horbat Hoga
/ref> Identified with the
Philistine Philistines (; Septuagint, LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philist ...
town of Oga, it is notable for being depicted on the 6th century Map of Madaba. Six tombs from the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
era have been excavated. Remains from the
Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...
era have also been found here.


Ottoman era

The modern village of Huj was established sometime between 1818 and 1820 by Mustafa Bey, the Ottoman Governor of Gaza and
Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...
. He built a police station to keep the village secure, and offered free land to encourage migration to the site from Gaza from amongst the surrounding
Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...
tribes. Huj and its greater vicinity were dominated by the tribes of Jebarat and Wahaideh, the latter of which participated in the 1834 rebellion against Egyptian rule. The rebellion was suppressed and most of the Wahaideh were killed, imprisoned, or forced to work the lands, while the rest fled the area. It was later resettled by fellahin from Gaza. In 1838, Edward Robinson noted it as
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 ...
village, located in the Gaza district.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
119
/ref> He further observed that its houses were built of adobe and that the population ranged from 200 to 300, most of whom made a living through grain cultivation and bread making. In 1863 the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village. He described as a village of at most three hundred people. The houses were roughly built with mud bricks. Near the well, which was very deep, were a few fragments of ancient columns of gray-white marble lying on the ground. An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Huj had a population of 153, in 63 houses, though the population count included men, only.Socin, 1879, p
155
/ref> In 1883, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described it as a "small mud village on flat ground. It has a well some 200 feet deep. It is named from Nebi Huj".


British mandate era

Huj witnessed battles between Ottoman and British forces known as the Charge at Huj in 1917. Following
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
's victory and the establishment of the British Mandate in Palestine, Huj expanded eastward and to the west. Water was provided by a well, and by other wells in surrounding riverbeds. The inhabitants cultivated grains, apricots, figs, grapes, and almonds. 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, Huj had a population of 426 inhabitants, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 618, still all Muslims, in 118 houses.Mills, 1932, p
3
In the 1945 statistics the population of Huj was counted with that of the nearby Jewish kibbutz Dorot, together they had a population of 810 Muslims and 230 Jews, with a total of 21,988
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, Arabs used 93 dunams for plantations and irrigable land, 16,236 for cereals, while they had 34 dunams as built-up land. Huj was a village with traditions of friendship with Jews: in 1946, men from the Haganah, being pursued in a crackdown by the British army, were given sanctuary by its inhabitants. Only after the passage of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in late November 1947 did relations sour and the
mukhtar A mukhtar (; ) is a village chief in the Levant: "an old institution that goes back to the time of the Ottoman rule". According to Amir S. Cheshin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed, the mukhtar "for centuries were the central figures". They "were ...
and his brother were shot on the charge that they were collaborators.
Robert Fisk Robert William Fisk (12 July 194630 October 2020) was an English writer and journalist. He was critical of United States foreign policy in the Middle East, and the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians. As an international correspo ...
, 2012
'The suffering of Sderot: how its true inhabitants were wiped from Israel's maps and memories,'
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
12 November 2012.
File:Huj ii.jpg, Domestic interior. Huj. 1948 File:Huj iii.jpg,
Yiftach Brigade The 11th Brigade (also known as the Yiftach Brigade) is a reserves unit in the Israel Defense Forces, composed mainly of fighters that completed their compulsory service in the Egoz Unit, Unit 621 – 'Egoz'. History In the 1948 Arab–Israeli ...
in Huj. 1948 File:Huj Gaza.jpg, Collage of photos of Huj from Palmach archive. 1948 File:Huj iv.jpg, Huj, 1948. Photo from Palmach archive. See figure for scale. File:Huj i.jpg, Huj after the conquest. 1948


1948 war and aftermath

As the Egyptian army advanced from the south a decision was taken towards the end of May 1948 by the
Negev Brigade The Negev Brigade (, ''Hativat HaNegev''), originally the 12th Brigade is an Israeli Reserve duty (Israel), reserve infantry brigade under the Sinai Division, that originally served in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. History Founding and organizatio ...
to expel the villagers of Huj from their lands, and on 31 May, their houses were blown up, their assets looted, and they were driven off to the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...
. The heads of three kibbutzim, respectively Farda, Gavri and Frisch from Dorot, Nir-Am and Ruhama, later, on August 4, wrote a letter of complaint to Ben-Gurion over the treatment that had been meted out to the local Palestinians. While personally he did not intervene and did not condemn what had happened, he expressed a hope that the IDF might listen to their complaint: "I hope that the HQ will pay attention to what you say, and will avoid such unjust and unjustified actions in the future, and will set right these things in so far as possible with respect to the past." In September 1948 former villagers of Huj, noting that the area around Huj was quiet, appealed to Israel to allow them back. Members of the
Ministry of Minority Affairs The Ministry of Minority Affairs is the ministry in the Government of India which was carved out of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and created on 29 January 2006. It is the apex body for the central government's regulatory and ...
Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit and Yaakov Shimoni wrote that the inhabitants deserved special treatment as they had been "loyal", and had not fled but were expelled. However, the Israeli defence authorities decided not to allow the villagers back. Havat Shikmim (" Sycamore Ranch") was built on Huj lands and was later purchased by
Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...
in 1972. According to Izzeldin Abuelaish the mosque of Huj has been serving as the pen for Sharon's Arabian thoroughbred horses. In 1992, the village site was described: "Only one dilapidated building remains, a concrete structure with rectangular doors and windows and a flat roof. Its former function is not clear; it now serves as a farm storehouse. One can also identify the remnants of a watering trough. Sycamore trees and cactuses grow on the eastern and western edges of the site. An Israeli sheep farm has also been established on the site." In 1998,
refugees A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
from Huj in Gaza numbered an estimated 5,770 people.


See also

* Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel


References


Bibliography

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


External links


Welcome to Huj
Palestineremembered.com
Huj
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 20
IAAWikimedia commons


from the 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