Yarda 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 ...

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

in the Safad Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the

1947–1949 Palestine war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionism, Zionist forces conquered territory and established ...

. It was located 10.5 km northeast of

Safad Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortified town in the Upper Gal ...

. The area is now part of Israel.

Etymology

The name Yarda is

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

, and means 'the water spring'.

History

''Khirbat Waqqas'' was located west-northwest of Yarda, and is recognised as the place the

Canaanites {{Cat main, Canaan See also: * :Ancient Israel and Judah Ancient Levant Hebrew Bible nations Ancient Lebanon 0050 Ancient Syria Wikipedia categories named after regions 0050 0050 Phoenicia Amarna Age civilizations ...

referred to as Hazor.

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

found at ''Kh. Waqqas'' in 1875: 'Near a small enclosure, in the centre of which is a broken column consecrated to a santon, are shown the remains of an edifice oriented east and west, once probably a church. It was ornamented with monolithic columns in ordinary limestone, some broken pieces of which are still lying about. Other similar fragments are found in the neighbouring houses. Here and there I remarked cut stones, which no doubt belonged to this monument. A little to the south, a hillock is also covered with ruins of houses.' In 1881, the PEF's ''

Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...

'' (SWP) found at ''Kh. Wakkas'' only cattle-sheds. Yarda itself was located at a place called ''Kh el Loziyeh'' in the late Ottoman era. In 1881, the SWP found here: "Caves and ruined cattle sheds".

British Mandate era

In the

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

, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Yarda'' had a population of 13

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, in a total of 3 houses.Mills, 1932, p
111
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, the population was 20 Muslims, who owned 1,367

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. Of this, 1,359 dunams were used for cereals, while 8 dunams were classified as un-cultivable area.

Post 1948

After Yarda became depopulated, Ayyelet ha-Shahar took over some of the village land, while in 1949 Mishmar ha-Yarden was also settled on village land. In 1992 the village site was described: "The truncated walls of some houses still stand, as well as those of a ''khan'', or caravansary. The site is strewn with stones from crumbled houses. A portion of the land is used as pasture."Khalidi, 1992, pp. 504-505

References

Bibliography

* * * (p
122
* * * * *

External links

Yarda
Zochrot
Yarda
Villages of Palestine *Survey of Western Palestine, map 4
IAAWikimedia commons

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