Sajad () was a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was located sixteen kilometers south of

Ramla Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph S ...

. Sajad was established in the late 19th century near a local train station. It was depopulated during the

1948 Arab–Israeli war The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

.Khalidi, 1992, p. 410

History

In 1838, ''Sejad'' was noted as a place "in ruins or deserted."Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
120
/ref> The village of Sajad was the site of a railway station built by the French in Ottoman era

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 ...

. In August 1892, the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway service was initiated; the train stopped in Sajad. The station was closed after a new railway line and station were built at nearby Wadi Sarar in 1915.Gilbar, 1990, p
209
/ref> The land which the villagers cultivated, was at one time owned by the Ottoman sultan Abd al-Hamid, but it was taken from him by the Ottoman government in 1908. After this, the village land was classified as jiftlik land, owned by the government but leased on a long-term basis to the villagers.

British Mandate era

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, Sajad had a population of 221

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 ...

s,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p
21
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 300, still all Muslims, in a total of 66 houses.Mills, 1932, p
23
The village did not have a school on its own, but in 1945–46 it started sending its students to a school in Qazaza, a village to the southeast. In the 1945 statistics the population was 370, all Muslims, while the total land area was 2,795

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, according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
68
/ref> Of this, a total of 1,687 dunums of land were used for cereals, while 19 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>

1948 and after

A military operation planned by the pre-state

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 ...

i forces against the village of Sajad as part of Operation Nahshon is recorded in a document from the Nahshon Headquarters to the 52nd Battalion, dated 15 April 1948.Morris, 2004, pp.
235293
��294 According to

Benny Morris Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...

, "Battalion 3 was ordered to annihilate and destroy the village of Sajad." According to Khalidi the village was taken on 9–10 July as part of the Givati Brigade's Operation An-Far. There are

Palestinian refugees Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country, village or house over the course of the 1948 Palestine war and during the 1967 Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refug ...

from Sajad who still long to return to the site of their former village and who express deep distrust of other

Arab countries The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...

in which they live as refugees. . For example, Hassan, a refugee living in the Marka camp in

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

stated: "We do not have any confidence in the Arabs and they are

traitor Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

s, sometimes I get so depressed about it, I do not even want to talk to my children about what happened to my village Sajad in Palestine ... I prefer to live in a tent in my

homeland A homeland is a place where a national or ethnic identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethnic natio ...

than a castle anywhere else ... because I will always feel that the castle is not really mine."Chatty and Hunt, 2005, p
96
/ref> According to

Walid Khalidi Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...

, the site of the former village of Sajad is inaccessible, as it is now a military zone in Israel.

References

Bibliography

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External links