Sa'sa'
Encyclopedia
Sa'sa' was a Palestinian
village, located 12 kilometres northwest of Safed
that was depopulated by Israel
i forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
. The village suffered two massacres committed by Haganah
forces: one in mid-February 1948 and the other at the end of October the same year.
The Arab geographer Abū 'Ubayd 'Abd Allāh al-Bakrī (d.1094) reported that you passed through Sa'sa' travelling from Dayr al-Qasi to Safad.
In 1516 Sa'sa', with the rest of Palestine, came under the control of the Ottoman Empire
. Shortly after, Sa'sa' was made a checkpoint where a toll
was collected on various goods and travellers; the first records of such taxes are from 1525/6.
In 1596 Sa'sa' was classified as a village in the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira, part of liwa'
("district") of Safad, with a population of 457. It paid taxes on wheat
, barley
, olive
s and fruits, as well as on goat
s, beehive
s, and vineyard
s. According to this daftar
, there were no non-Muslim inhabitants in the village. In the eighteenth century Sa'sa' in mentioned as one of the fortified villages of Galilee
controlled by Zahir al-Umar's son, Ali. After the defeat of Zahir al-Umar in 1775 Ali continued to resist the Ottoman authorities and defeated an army sent against him at Sa'sa'.
In the late nineteenth century, Sa'sa' was described as a village with a population of 300, built on a slight hill that was surrounded by vineyards and olive and fig trees.
All the villagers were Muslim
. The village had a small market-place in the village center with a few shops, as well as a mosque
and two elementary schools, one for girls and one for boys. In 1944/45 the village, with a population of 1,130, used 4,496 dunum
s for cereals; 1,404 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.
, commander of the Palmach
in the north, ordered an attack on Sa'sa'. The order was given to Moshe Kalman, the deputy commander of Third Battalion. The order read: "You have to blow up twenty houses and kill as many warriors as possible". According to Pappé
, "warriors" in this context meant "villagers".
On February 15, 1948, a Palmach
unit entered the village during the night and, without resistance, planted explosives against some of the houses. It was reported at the time that ten or more houses were totally or partially destroyed and 11 villagers were killed (5 of them small children). According to the official history of the Haganah
, the village had been used as a base for Arab
fighters. However, press reports at the time belie this, since the Palmach units met "without opposition" in the village. According to Benvenisti (who gives the date of the attack as 14 February), the Palmach
units that raided Sa'sa' killed 60 people and demolished 16 houses.
It was not until October 30, 1948, as part of Operation Hiram
, that the forces of the Haganah occupied Sa'sa'. Those villagers who had not already fled were expelled. There are also allegations of war crimes at this time. Northern Command OC Moshe Carmel
later reported that he had seen evidence of killings, and an official investigation by Major Emanuel Yalan suggested that some villagers, including cripples, may have been killed after the village was occupied. However, the relevant files remain closed to historians.
Currently, there are few remains of the Palestinian village of Sa'sa', with the exception of the village mosque
, which has now been converted into the Kibbutz museum. Excavations in 1972 on the west side of the hill revealed the remains of a large rectangular structure (15m x 41 m) with 2m thick walls made out of rubble stone with ashlar
facing. At the south-west corner of the building there was a solid semi-circular tower (diameter 7m). The main part of the structure is a recangular hall divided into two rows of five bays
. There was a central row of four piers and two half-piers which would probably have supported a cross-vaulted roof. In a later phase an outer skin (2m wide) was added, making the wall a total of 4m thick. At the same time the round tower was converted into a square plan. According to the excavators, the place was occupied for a "fairly long" period, and suggest that it was probably part of the fortress built by Ali, (son of Zahir al-Umar) in the eighteenth century. The design of the building is quite compatible with other fortresses of the period, like Qalat Jiddin and Dayr Hanna.
In 1992, the Palestinian
historian Walid Khalidi
described the remains of the village: "Some of the old olive trees remain, and a number of walls and houses still stand. Some of the houses are presently used by the settlement; one of them has an arched entrance and arched windows. A large portion of the surrounding land is forested, the rest is cultivated by Israeli farmers."
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
village, located 12 kilometres northwest of Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
that was depopulated by Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
. The village suffered two massacres committed by Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
forces: one in mid-February 1948 and the other at the end of October the same year.
History
Sa'sa' was built on the site of a Bronze Age (early second millennium B.C.) settlement whose remains (walls, tombs, cisterns, and olive and wine presses), have been unearthed. One village house had foundations which has been dated back to fourth century by archaeologists. Another excavated in 2003 yielded ceramics dated to the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries CE.The Arab geographer Abū 'Ubayd 'Abd Allāh al-Bakrī (d.1094) reported that you passed through Sa'sa' travelling from Dayr al-Qasi to Safad.
In 1516 Sa'sa', with the rest of Palestine, came under the control of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Shortly after, Sa'sa' was made a checkpoint where a toll
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
was collected on various goods and travellers; the first records of such taxes are from 1525/6.
In 1596 Sa'sa' was classified as a village in the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira, part of liwa'
Liwa (arabic)
Liwa or Liwa is an Arabic term meaning district, banner, or flag, a type of administrative division. It was interchangeable with the Turkish term "Sanjak" in the time of the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of the empire, the term was used in the Arab countries formerly under Ottoman rule...
("district") of Safad, with a population of 457. It paid taxes on wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
, barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
, olive
Olive
The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...
s and fruits, as well as on goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
s, beehive
Beehive
A beehive is a structure in which bees live and raise their young.Beehive may also refer to:Buildings and locations:* Bee Hive, Alabama, a neighborhood in Alabama* Beehive , a wing of the New Zealand Parliament Buildings...
s, and vineyard
Vineyard
A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...
s. According to this daftar
Defter
A Defter was a type of tax register in the Ottoman Empire. The information collected could vary, but tahrir defterleri typically included details of villages, dwellings, household heads , ethnicity/religion , and land use.The defter-i hakâni was a land registry, also used for tax...
, there were no non-Muslim inhabitants in the village. In the eighteenth century Sa'sa' in mentioned as one of the fortified villages of Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
controlled by Zahir al-Umar's son, Ali. After the defeat of Zahir al-Umar in 1775 Ali continued to resist the Ottoman authorities and defeated an army sent against him at Sa'sa'.
In the late nineteenth century, Sa'sa' was described as a village with a population of 300, built on a slight hill that was surrounded by vineyards and olive and fig trees.
All the villagers were Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
. The village had a small market-place in the village center with a few shops, as well as a mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
and two elementary schools, one for girls and one for boys. In 1944/45 the village, with a population of 1,130, used 4,496 dunum
Dunum
Dunum is a municipality in the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany....
s for cereals; 1,404 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.
1948, and after
In February 1948, Yigal AllonYigal Allon
Yigal Allon was an Israeli politician, a commander of the Palmach, and a general in the IDF. He served as one of the leaders of Ahdut HaAvoda party and the Israeli Labor party, and acting Prime Minister of Israel, and was a member of the Knesset and government minister from the 10th through the...
, commander of the Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
in the north, ordered an attack on Sa'sa'. The order was given to Moshe Kalman, the deputy commander of Third Battalion. The order read: "You have to blow up twenty houses and kill as many warriors as possible". According to Pappé
Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies, and political activist...
, "warriors" in this context meant "villagers".
On February 15, 1948, a Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
unit entered the village during the night and, without resistance, planted explosives against some of the houses. It was reported at the time that ten or more houses were totally or partially destroyed and 11 villagers were killed (5 of them small children). According to the official history of the Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
, the village had been used as a base for Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
fighters. However, press reports at the time belie this, since the Palmach units met "without opposition" in the village. According to Benvenisti (who gives the date of the attack as 14 February), the Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
units that raided Sa'sa' killed 60 people and demolished 16 houses.
It was not until October 30, 1948, as part of Operation Hiram
Operation Hiram
Operation Hiram was a military operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It was led by General Moshe Carmel, and aimed at capturing the upper Galilee region from the Arab Liberation Army forces led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji and a Syrian battalion...
, that the forces of the Haganah occupied Sa'sa'. Those villagers who had not already fled were expelled. There are also allegations of war crimes at this time. Northern Command OC Moshe Carmel
Moshe Carmel
Moshe Carmel was an Israeli soldier and politician who served as Minister of Transportation for eight years.-Background:Born in Mińsk Mazowiecki in the Russian Empire , Carmel emigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1924 when he was 13 years old. He was a founding member of kibbutz Na'an, and was...
later reported that he had seen evidence of killings, and an official investigation by Major Emanuel Yalan suggested that some villagers, including cripples, may have been killed after the village was occupied. However, the relevant files remain closed to historians.
Currently, there are few remains of the Palestinian village of Sa'sa', with the exception of the village mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
, which has now been converted into the Kibbutz museum. Excavations in 1972 on the west side of the hill revealed the remains of a large rectangular structure (15m x 41 m) with 2m thick walls made out of rubble stone with ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
facing. At the south-west corner of the building there was a solid semi-circular tower (diameter 7m). The main part of the structure is a recangular hall divided into two rows of five bays
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
. There was a central row of four piers and two half-piers which would probably have supported a cross-vaulted roof. In a later phase an outer skin (2m wide) was added, making the wall a total of 4m thick. At the same time the round tower was converted into a square plan. According to the excavators, the place was occupied for a "fairly long" period, and suggest that it was probably part of the fortress built by Ali, (son of Zahir al-Umar) in the eighteenth century. The design of the building is quite compatible with other fortresses of the period, like Qalat Jiddin and Dayr Hanna.
In 1992, the Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
historian Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is General Secretary and co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an independent research and publishing center...
described the remains of the village: "Some of the old olive trees remain, and a number of walls and houses still stand. Some of the houses are presently used by the settlement; one of them has an arched entrance and arched windows. A large portion of the surrounding land is forested, the rest is cultivated by Israeli farmers."
See also
- List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War
External links
- Palestine Remembered - Sa'sa'
- Sa'sa', the Khalil Sakakini Cultural CenterKhalil Sakakini Cultural CenterKhalil Sakakini Cultural Center is an organization established in 1996. It is located at 4 Raja Street, Ramallah in the West Bank. The traditional manor that houses the centre was the former family home of Khalil Salem Salah, the mayor of Ramallah between 1947/1951, is now owned by the Palestinian...
- Sa3sa3, Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh
- Sa’sa’, Dr. Khalil Rizk.