Al-Jura

For the village near Jerusalem, see Al-Jura, Jerusalem. For the locale in Sinai, see El Gorah.

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

al-Jura الجورة
Part of the former village site, in 2015
Etymology: the Hollow [1]
1870s map 1940s map modern map 1940s with modern overlay map A series of historical maps of the area around Al-Jura (click the buttons)
al-Jura Location within the Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 31°39′57″N34°33′17″E / 31.66583°N 34.55472°E / 31.66583; 34.55472
Palestine grid	107/119
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Gaza
Date of depopulation	November 4–5, 1948 [2]
Area [3]
• Total	12,224  dunams (12.224 km2 or 4.720 sq mi)
Population  (1945)
• Total	2,420 [4] [3]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current Localities	Ashkelon [5]

Al-Jura (Arabic : الجورة) was a Palestinian village that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, located immediately adjacent to the towns of Ashkelon and the ruins of ancient Ascalon. In 1945, the village had a population of approximately 2,420 mostly Muslim inhabitants. Though defended by the Egyptian Army, al-Jura was nevertheless captured by Israel's Givati Brigade in a November 4, 1948, offensive as part of Operation Yoav.

Its residents had their origins in Egypt, Hebron, and Bedouin communities. ^[6]

The Shrine of Husayn's Head was located outside the town, until it was destroyed by the Israeli army in 1950.

The founder and spiritual leader of the Hamas militant organization Ahmed Yassin was born in al-Jura.

History

Al-Jura (El-Jurah) stood northeast of and immediately adjacent to the mound of ancient and medieval Ascalon.

Byzantine ceramics have been found here, together with coins dating to the seventh century CE. ^[7]

Ottoman era

In the first Ottoman tax register of 1526/7 the village was unpopulated. ^[8] By 1596 CE, however, the village had been refounded as part of the nahiya of Gaza and named Jawrat al-Hajja. It had 46 Muslim households, an estimated population of 253; who paid a total of 3,400 akçe in taxes. ^[9]

Marom and Taxel have shown that during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, nomadic economic and security pressures led to settlement abandonment around Majdal ‘Asqalān, and the southern coastal plain in general. The population of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, while the lands of abandoned settlements continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages. Thus, al-Jura absorbed the lands of al-Rasm and al-Bira, the last one separated from the village by the lands of al-Majdal. ^[8]

The Syrian Sufi teacher and traveller Mustafa al-Bakri al-Siddiqi (1688–1748/9) visited Al-Jura in the first half of the eighteenth century, before leaving for Hamama. ^[10]

In 1838, Edward Robinson noted el-Jurah as a Muslim village, located in the Gaza district. ^[11]

In 1863 the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village, which he called Djoura, and found it to have three hundred inhabitants. He further noted that he could see numerous antiquities, taken from the ruined city, and that the inhabitants of the village grew handsome fruit trees, as well as flowers and vegetables. ^[12] An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that the village had a population of 340, in a total of 109 houses, though the population count included men, only. ^{[13] [14]}

In the late nineteenth century, the village of Al-Jura was situated on flat ground bordering on the ruins of ancient Ascalon. ^[15] It was rectangular in shape and the residents were Muslim. They had a mosque and a school which was founded in 1919. ^[10]

British Mandate era

• 
  Al-Jura, 1931 (1:200,000)
• 
  Al-Jura, 1945 (1:250,000)

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Jura had a population of 1,326 inhabitants, all Muslims, ^[16] increasing in the 1931 census to 1,754, consisting of 1752 Muslims and 2 Christians, in a total of 396 houses. ^[17]

By the 1940s the school had 206 students.

^[10] In the 1945 Village Statistics El Jura had an estimated population of 2,420 Muslims, ^[4] with a total of 12,224 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. ^[3] Of this, 481 dunams were used for citrus and bananas, 7,192 for plantations and irrigable land, 2,965 for cereals, ^[18] while 45 dunams were built-up land. ^[19]

In addition to agriculture, residents practiced animal husbandry which formed was an important source of income for the town. In 1943, they owned 115 heads of cattle, 7 sheep over a year old, 92 goats over a year old, 47 camels, 7 horses, a mule, 130 donkeys, 970 fowls, and 227 pigeons. ^[20]

1948 War

At the end of November 1948, Coastal Plain District troops carried out sweeps of the villages around and to the south of Majdal. Al-Jura was one of the villages named in the orders to the IDF battalions and engineers platoon, that the villagers were to be expelled to Gaza, and the IDF troops were "to prevent their return by destroying their villages". The path leading to the village was to be mined. The IDF troops were ordered to carry out the operation "with determination, accuracy and energy". ^[21] The operation took place on 30 November. The troops found "not a living soul" in Al-Jura. However, the destruction of the villages was not completed immediately due to the dampness of the houses and the insufficient amount of explosives. ^[22]

In 1992, the village site was described: "Only one of the village houses has been spared; thorny plants grow on the parts of the site not built over by Ashqelon." ^[5] The site is incorporated into Ashkelon National Park. ^[23]

Shrine of Husayn's Head

Main article: Shrine of Husayn's Head

The shrine during the annual festival

The Shrine of Husayn's Head ^[24] was a Fatimid-era shrine located on a hill outside Al-Jura that was reputed to have held the head of Husayn ibn Ali between c.906 CE and 1153 CE. ^{[25] [26] [27]}

It was considered the most important Shi'a shrine in Palestine, ^[28] but was destroyed by the Israeli army in 1950, a year after hostilities ended, on the orders of Moshe Dayan. It is thought that the demolition was related to efforts to expel the remaining Palestinian Arabs from the region. ^[26]

Notable residents

• Ahmed Yassin ^[29]
• The parents of Ismail Haniyeh. ^[30]

See also

• Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel

References

1. Palmer, 1881, p. 360
2. Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #307, Also gives the 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. 117
6. Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 383
7. Dauphin, 1998, p. 872
8. Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2023-10-01). "Ḥamāma: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan's hinterland, 1270–1750 CE". Journal of Historical Geography. 82: 49–65. doi: 10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003 . ISSN   0305-7488.
9. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 150. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 116
10. Khalidi, 1992, p. 116.
11. Robinson and Smith, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 118
12. Guérin, 1869, p. 134
13. Socin, 1879, p. 153 Also noted it in the Gaza district, northeast of Askalon
14. Hartmann, 1883, p. 130, also noted 109 houses
15. Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 236. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 116
16. Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Gaza, p. 8
17. Mills, 1932, p. 4
18. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 87
19. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 137
20. Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2024-10-10). "Hamama: The Palestinian Countryside in Bloom (1750–1948)". Journal of Islamic Archaeology. 11 (1): 93. doi:10.1558/jia.26586. ISSN   2051-9729.
21. Coastal Plain District HQ to battalions 151 and ´1 Volunteers`, etc., 19:55 hours, 25 Nov. 1948, IDFA (=Israeli Defence Forces and Defence Ministry Archive) 6308\49\\141. Cited in Morris, 2004, p. 517
22. Coastal Plain HQ to Southern Front\Operations, 30 Nov. 1948, IDFA 1978\50\\1; and Southern Front\Operations to General Staff Divisions, 2. Dec. 1948, IDFA 922\75\\1025. Cited in Morris, 2004, p. 518
23. Hawa, Kaleem (November 2024). "Like a Bag Trying to Empty". Parapraxis. Retrieved 2024-10-10.
24. Press, Michael (March 2014). "Hussein's Head and Importance of Cultural Heritage". The Ancient Near East Today. American School of Oriental Research. Archived from the original on 17 May 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
25. Talmon-Heller 2020, p. 101–111.
26. Talmon-Heller, Kedar & Reiter 2016.
27. Petersen 2017, pp. 108–110.
28. Petersen 2017, p. 108.
29. The life and death of Shaikh Yasin Al Jazeera
30. إسماعيل هنية.. لاجئ من مخيم الشاطئ قاد حركة حماس [Ismail Haniyeh.. A refugee from the Shati refugee camp who led the Hamas movement]. الجزيرة نت | الموسوعة | فلسطين. Al Jazeera Net. 2024-07-31. Retrieved 4 August 2024. ولد إسماعيل عبد السلام أحمد هنية يوم 23 يناير/كانون الثاني 1962 (أو 1963) في قطاع غزة بمخيم الشاطئ للاجئين، الذي كانت أسرته قد لجأت إليه من قرية الجورة الواقعة في قضاء مدينة عسقلان المحتلة.

Bibliography

• Barron, J.B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1883). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 3. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Dauphin, C. (1998). La Palestine byzantine, Peuplement et Populations. BAR International Series 726 (in French). Vol. III : Catalogue. Oxford: Archeopress. ISBN   0-860549-05-4.
• Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
• Guérin, V. (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 1: Judee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale. (p146: refer to Stanhope visit 1815, III, 152-169) 25 May
• 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 2018-12-08. Retrieved 2009-10-04.
• Hartmann, M. (1883). "Die Ortschaftenliste des Liwa Jerusalem in dem türkischen Staatskalender für Syrien auf das Jahr 1288 der Flucht (1871)". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 6: 102–149.
• Hütteroth, W.-D.; Abdulfattah, K. (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN   3-920405-41-2.
• 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.
• Kogan-Zehavi, Elena (2006-08-02). "Ashqelon, el-Jura". Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel (118).
• Kogan-Zehavi, Elena (2011-09-26). "Ashqelon, el-Jura". Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel (123).
• 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.
• Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Peretz, Ilan; Eisenberg-Degen, Davida (2017-12-18). "Ashqelon, el-Jura". Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel (129).
• Petersen, A. (2017). "Shrine of Husayn's Head". Bones of Contention: Muslim Shrines in Palestine. Heritage Studies in the Muslim World. Springer Singapore. ISBN   978-981-10-6965-9 . Retrieved 2023-01-06.
• Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.
• Socin, A. (1879). "Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 2: 135–163.
• Talmon-Heller, Daniella; Kedar, B. Z.; Reiter, Y. (January 2016). "Vicissitudes of a Holy Place: Construction, Destruction and Commemoration of Mashhad Ḥusayn in Ascalon". Der Islam. 93 (1). Walter de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/islam-2016-0008. ISSN   1613-0928.
• Talmon-Heller, Daniella (2020). "Part I: A Sacred Place: The Shrine of al-Husayn's Head". Sacred Place and Sacred Time in the Medieval Islamic Middle East: An Historical Perspective. University Press Scholarship Online. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9781474460965.001.0001. ISBN   9781474460965. S2CID   240874864.

External links

• Al-Jura Town Statistics and Facts
• al-Jura (Gaza), Zochrot
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 19: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Jura from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center