Abu Shusha, Haifa

Abu Shusha (Arabic: أبو شوشة‎) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Haifa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on 9 April 1948 during the Battle of Mishmar HaEmek.

This article is about the former village in Haifa Sub-district. For the former village in Ramle Sub-district, see Abu Shusha. For the former village in Tiberias Sub-district, see Ghuwayr Abu Shusha.
Abu Shusha

أبو شوشة
Village
Children of Abu Shusha, before the 1948 Palestinian exodus
Etymology: The father of the Tuft[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Abu Shusha, Haifa (click the buttons)
Abu Shusha
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 32°36′51″N 35°08′17″E
Palestine grid163/224
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictHaifa
Date of depopulation9–10 April 1948[2]
Area
 • Total8,960 dunams (9 km2 or 3 sq mi)
Population
 (1948)
 • Total835
Cause(s) of depopulationMilitary assault by Yishuv forces
Current LocalitiesMishmar HaEmek

History

The village was located just west of Tel Shush, which recent examination shows may date from the Early Bronze Age.[3] It has also been suggested as the location of the Roman town of Gaba Hippeon, founded in the year 61 BCE, by the Roman governor of Syria, L. Marcius Philippus.[4][5][6] It was an episcopal see in the fifth-sixth centuries,[6] and ceramics from the Byzantine era have been found here.[7]

Ottoman era

In 1870 Victor Guérin described it as a small village. The slopes of the hill were covered with many piles of overturned materials from buildings, and on the highest point was the remains of an old tower.[8]

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described "a little hamlet on the edge of the plain, with a spring to the east."[9]

British Mandate era

In the British Mandate of Palestine period, in the 1922 census of Palestine Abu Shusheh had a population of 12; all Muslims,[10] increasing sharply in the 1931 census when it was counted with Esh Shuqeirat and Arab el Saayda, to 831; still all Muslim, in a total of 155 houses.[11]

In 1926 a small group of Jews from the Hashomer Hatzair movement settled in a caravanserai located on Tell Abu Shusha, before they moved to a location a few hundred yards south[12] and established Mishmar HaEmek.[13]

In the 1945 statistics Abu Shusha had a population of 720, all Muslims,[14] with a total of 8,960 dunams of land.[15] Of this, 931 dunums were plantations or irrigable land, 4,939 were for cereals,[16] while 3,090 dunams were classified as uncultivable land.[17]

In 1940s a resident called Salim Ibn Hussein moved to Syria and returned in 1947, infused with Arab nationalism and led the armed guard of Abu Shusha during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine.[18]

1948, aftermath
Abu Shusha in historical context

On 5 April 1948 after ALA launched the attack[19] and Abu Shusha among other villages served as a base to attacks on Mishmar HaEmek,[20] the Haganah General Staff (HGS) instructed the Golani Brigade: "You must tell the following villages ... that we cannot assure their safety and security, and that they must evacuate forthwith." Among the four villages were Abu Shusha, Daliyat al-Rawha' and Al-Rihaniyya.[19][21] According to Ben-Gurion, a delegation of Mishmar HaEmek leaders came to him on the 8th or 9 April, and told him that "it was imperative to expel the Arabs [in the area] and to burn the villages."[19][22]

By the 11 April, the village was empty, and 1 Battalion in the Palmach blew up 30 houses in Al-Kafrayn and Abu Shusha in order to block the return of the villagers.[23][24] Following the 1948 war, the area was incorporated into the State of Israel.

In 1992, Walid Khalidi described the area: "The only remaining sign of the village is the debris of houses, overgrown with cactuses. The grain mill is gone. On the hilly lands around the site, olive trees grow in a fenced-in area that serves as a pasture. The adjacent lands in Marj ibn Amir are planted in various crops, especially cotton."[25]

Two village histories have been written about Abu Shusha and the Arab Turkoman; one in 1987 by Alya Khatib,[26] and one in 1999 by Faisal al-Shuqayrat.[27]

References
  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 142
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xviii, village #152. Also gives cause of depopulation.
  3. Khalidi, 1992, p. 142
  4. Siegelman, 1984, cited in Khalidi, 1992, p. 142
  5. Shatzman, 1991, p. 258
  6. Tsafrir, di Segni and Green, 1994, p. 126
  7. Dauphin, 1998, pp. 700–701
  8. Guérin, 1875, pp. 239-240
  9. Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 41
  10. Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Haifa, p. 33
  11. Mills, 1932, p. 87
  12. Morris, 1987, pp.116, 117
  13. "משמר העמק – אירועים מרכזיים בהיסטוריית משמר העמק [Mishmar HaEmek – Key events in the history of Mishmar HaEmek]". Mishmar HaEmek website (in Hebrew). Retrieved 8 July 2016.
  14. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 13
  15. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 47 Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
  16. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 89
  17. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 139
  18. Ozev, Amriam (2013). "chapter i". Mishmar HaEmek Will Stand (in Hebrew). Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir. ISBN 978-965-552-557-1. Retrieved 29 July 2016.
  19. Morris, 2004, p. 241
  20. Troen, S. Ilan; Lucas, Noah (2012-02-01). Israel: The First Decade of Independence. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-2232-9.
  21. Morris, 2004, p. 296: Note #594
  22. Morris, 2004, p. 296: Note #593
  23. Morris, 2004, p. 346
  24. Morris, 2004, p. 397, note 30
  25. Khalidi, 1992, p. 143
  26. Davis, 2011, p. 283
  27. Davis, 2011, p. 285

Bibliography
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