Abu Kishk

Abu Kishk (Arabic: أبو كشك) was a Palestinian village in the Jaffa Subdistrict located 12 km northeast of Jaffa, situated 2 km northwest of the Yarkon River. The village was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on 30 March 1948 by the Irgun.

Abu Kishk

ابو كشْك
Village
Old school of Abu Kishk
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Abu Kishk (click the buttons)
Abu Kishk
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 32°8′11″N 34°51′55″E
Palestine grid136/170
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictJaffa
Date of depopulation30 March 1948[1]
Area
 • Total17,121 dunams (17.121 km2 or 6.610 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total1,900[3][2][4]
Cause(s) of depopulationFear of being caught up in the fighting
Secondary causeInfluence of nearby town's fall
Current LocalitiesHerzliya[5]

In 1945 the population of the village was about 1,900, about 300 of them lived in the area of the future Herzliya.[6]

Location

The village was situated about 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) northwest of the Yarkon River. Secondary roads linked it to the Jaffa-Haifa highway and to neighboring villages.[4]

History

British Mandate of Palestine

In 1925 the village school was founded. By the mid-1940s it had 108 students, including 9 girls.[4]

At the time of the 1931 census, Abu Kishk had a population of 1007 residents, all Muslims.[7]

In the 1945 statistics Abu Kishk had 1,900 Muslim residents,[3] who owned a total of 17,121 dunams of land.[2] A total of 2,486 dunums of village land was used for citrus or bananas, 14,018 was planted with cereals; while 226 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.[5][8]

Seif Eddid AbuKish and prince, (later king) Abdullah I of Jordan

1948 Palestine war

In December 1947 and January 1948 the leaders of al-Shaykh Muwannis, Al-Mas'udiyya, Al-Jammasin al-Sharqi/Al-Jammasin al-Gharbi, and the mukhtars of Ijlil al-Qibliyya, Ijlil al-Shamaliyya and Abu Kishk met with Haganah representatives in Petah Tikva. These villages wanted peace, and promised not to harbor any Arab Liberation Armies or local Arab Militia. They further promised that, in the case they were not able to keep them out alone, they were to call on Haganah for help.[9]

By mid-March 1948, the Alexandroni Brigade had imposed isolation, a "quarantine", of al-Shaykh Muwannis, Ijlil al-Qibliyya, Ijlil al-Shamaliyya and Abu Kishk. However, on 12 March LHI kidnapped 5 village notables from al-Shaykh Muwannis.[10] This completely undermined the villagers' trust in former agreements, and many left.[11]

Notes
  1. Morris, 2004, p. xviii, village #197. Also gives causes of depopulation
  2. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 52
  3. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 27
  4. Khalidi, 1992, p. 235
  5. Khalidi, 1992, p. 236
  6. Herzliya, "Mother of the Kibbutzim and the Communal Groups", by Dan Yahav. Yaron Golan Publishers.
  7. Mills, 1932, p. 16
  8. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 95
  9. Morris, 2004, p. 91
  10. Morris, 2004, p. 127
  11. Morris, 2004, p. 128

Bibliography
  • Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945.
  • Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center. Archived from the original on 8 December 2018. Retrieved 18 August 2009.
  • Khalidi, W. (1992). All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
  • Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
  • Morris, B. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
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