Jusayr

Jusayr was a Palestinian Arab village in the Gaza Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 17, 1948 under Operation Barak or Operation Yo'av. It was located 35 km northeast of Gaza.

Jusayr

جسير
Etymology: "the little bridge"[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Jusayr (click the buttons)
Jusayr
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 31°39′25″N 34°46′15″E
Palestine grid128/118
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictGaza
Date of depopulationJuly 17–18, 1948[2]
Area
 • Total12,361 dunams (12.361 km2 or 4.773 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total1,180[4][3]
Cause(s) of depopulationMilitary assault by Yishuv forces
Current LocalitiesMenucha,[5] Wardon[5]

History

Ceramics from the Byzantine era have been found here.[6]

Ottoman era

In 1517, Jusayr was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine, and in 1596 the village appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as being in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Gaza under the Liwa of Gaza. It had a population of 60 household;[7] an estimated population of 330.[8] The whole population was Muslim.[7] It paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, goats, beehives, as well as on "occasional revenues"; a total of 12,180 Akçe.[7]

In 1838, Edward Robinson noted el Juseir as a Muslim village, located in the Gaza district.[9][10]

In 1863 Victor Guérin visited the village, which he found to have 500 inhabitants,[11] while an Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that the village had a population of 296, in a total of 119 houses, though the population count included men, only.[12][13]

In 1883 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as being an adobe village on flat ground.[14]

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Jusayr had a population of 579 inhabitants, all Muslims,[15] increasing in the 1931 census to 839 Muslims, in a total of 246 houses.[16]

Jusayr 1931 1:20,000

By the 1945 statistics, Jusayr had a population of 1180 Muslims,[4] with a total of 12,361 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[3] Of this, 11,852 dunams were used for cereals,[17] while 54 dunams were built-up land.[18]

Jusayr 1945 1:250,000

Jusayr had an elementary school for boys which was founded in 1937, and by 1945, it had 74 students.[8]

Jusayr 1948 1:20,000

Post 1948

In 1992 the village site was described: "One concrete, flat-roofed house still stands in the middle of a peach orchard. Its front facade has two rectangular windows and a rectangular entrance in the middle. The debris of houses among tall grasses and weeds is visible. A garbage dump is now located on the site, as well as buildings that belong to an Israeli settlement. The surrounding lands are cultivated."[5]

References
  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 368
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #300. Also gives cause for depopulation
  3. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 46
  4. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 31
  5. Khalidi, 1992, p. 118
  6. Dauphin, 1992, p. 873
  7. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 147
  8. Khalidi, 1992, p. 117
  9. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 2, p. 369
  10. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 118
  11. Guérin, 1869, p. 122
  12. Socin, 1879, p. 153
  13. Hartmann, 1883, p. 133, also noted 119 houses
  14. Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 260, Cited in Khalidi, 1992, p. 117
  15. Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Gaza, p. 9
  16. Mills, 1932, p. 4
  17. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 87
  18. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 137

Bibliography
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