Saliha

Quality 0.50 · 2 views · Updated 2 months ago

Palestinian village depopulated in 1948

title: "Saliha" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["arab-villages-depopulated-during-the-1948-arab–israeli-war", "massacres-in-israel-during-the-israeli–palestinian-conflict", "district-of-safad", "zionist-political-violence", "massacres-committed-by-israel"] description: "Palestinian village depopulated in 1948" topic_path: "geography/israel" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saliha" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Palestinian village depopulated in 1948 ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox settlement"]

FieldValue
nameSaliha
native_nameصَلْحَة
native_name_langar
image_captionSaliha, 2012
pushpin_mapMandatory Palestine
pushpin_mapsize200
coordinates
grid_namePalestine grid
grid_position192/275
subdivision_typeGeopolitical entity
subdivision_nameMandatory Palestine
subdivision_type1Subdistrict
subdivision_name1Safad
established_title1Date of depopulation
established_date130 October 1948
established_title2Repopulated dates
area_footnotes
unit_prefdunam
area_total_dunam11,735
population_as_of1945
population_total1070 (including Maroun al-Ras and Yaroun)
blank_name_sec1Cause(s) of depopulation
blank_info_sec1Military assault by Yishuv forces
blank3_name_sec1Current localities
blank3_info_sec1Yir'on and Avivim
::

| name = Saliha | native_name = صَلْحَة | native_name_lang = ar | settlement_type = | image_caption = Saliha, 2012 | pushpin_map = Mandatory Palestine | pushpin_map_caption = Location within Mandatory Palestine | image_map = | map_caption = A series of historical maps of the area around Saliha (click the buttons) | pushpin_mapsize = 200 | coordinates = | grid_name = Palestine grid | grid_position = 192/275 | subdivision_type = Geopolitical entity | subdivision_name = Mandatory Palestine | subdivision_type1 = Subdistrict | subdivision_name1 = Safad | established_title1 = Date of depopulation | established_date1 = 30 October 1948 | established_title2 = Repopulated dates | area_footnotes = | unit_pref = dunam | area_total_dunam = 11,735 | population_as_of = 1945 | population_total = 1070 (including Maroun al-Ras and Yaroun) | blank_name_sec1 = Cause(s) of depopulation | blank_info_sec1 = Military assault by Yishuv forces | blank3_name_sec1 = Current localities | blank3_info_sec1 = Yir'on and Avivim

Saliha (), sometimes transliterated ** Salha**, meaning 'the good/healthy place', was a Palestinian Arab village located 12 kilometres northwest of Safed. The village was one of the Seven Lebanese Villages before 1920 that was later annexed to the British Mandate of Palestine. Originally part of the Jabal Amel district of South Lebanon, this term has been historically used to denote the homeland of Shi'a Muslims in Southern Lebanon. Located twelve kilometers north of Safad and after the transfer of the village, Saliha is currently one kilometer south of the border with Lebanon on the edge of a deep wadi (i.e. valley) known as Wadi Saliha. --

The Franco-British boundary agreement of 1920 placed Saliha within the French Mandate of Lebanon border, thus classifying it a part of Lebanese territory. It was one of the 24 villages transferred from the French mandate of Lebanon to British control in 1924 in accordance with the 1923 demarcation of the border between the Mandatory Palestine and the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon.

Under the 1948 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, Saliha was to be included in the proposed Arab state, while the boundary between it and the proposed Jewish state was to run north of the built-up area of the village.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Saliha was the site of a massacre carried out by Israeli forces shortly before the village was completely depopulated. The built structures in the village, with the exception of an elementary school for boys, were also destroyed.

History

There were several old structures in the village, including rock-cut tombs, traces of mosaic floors, and oil presses. The nearby Khirbat al-Sanifa contained ancient relics, such as a circular pressing floor. A winepress was excavated in the area in 2001.

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Saliha as a village of about 200 people who cultivated gardens in the surrounding area and built their homes out of basalt stones mortared with mud. They took their drinking water from several cisterns and a large pond.

British Mandate era

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Saliha_police_post.jpg" caption="archive-date=1 October 2007 }}"] ::

Its population was predominantly Shia Muslim and it had an elementary school for boys.

In the 1931 census of Palestine the population of Salha was 742 Muslims, in a total of 142 houses.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Saliha_1945.jpg" caption="Saliha. 1945. [[Survey of Palestine]]. Scale 1:250,000"] ::

By the 1945 statistics the population was counted with Maroun al-Ras and Yaroun, and totaling 1,070 Muslims while 58 dunams were built-up (urban) area.

1948 war: massacre and depopulation

Israeli forces perpetrated a massacre in Saliha during the 1948 Palestine war. Between 30 October 1948 and 2 November 1948, Saliha was the first of three villages in which a massacre was committed by the 7th Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces under the command of General Moshe Carmel. The other two instances being the Safsaf massacre and a massacre in Jish.

In the case of Saliha, Israeli archival sources say the troops entered the village and blew up a structure, possibly a mosque, killing the 60 to 94 people who had taken refuge inside. Nahmani refers to "'60 - 70' men and women murdered after 'they had raised a white flag'". Also referenced by Morris are handwritten notes taken by Aharon Cohen from the Mapam Political Committee meeting on 1 November 1948 in which Galili, or Moshe Erem is recorded as stating: "94 in Saliha blown up in a house". In accounts recorded from interviews with Saliha families, now resident in Lebanon, Robert Fisk provides a different version.

Nimr Aoun (b.1915), one of two survivors of the massacre in the square, says that when the Jewish army arrived, leaflets were handed over to villagers saying they would be spared if they surrendered, which they duly did. The area was surrounded by thirteen tanks (other accounts speak of 10 armoured cars) and, while the villagers stood together, the Israelis opened fire. He survived, though wounded, by hiding under corpses and then crawling off under cover of night, finding a donkey and riding it to Maroun for surgery.

In an earlier interview Aoun said the villagers were summoned from a crier to assemble in the village square in front of a mosque. Two Israeli officers sipped coffee as the locals gathered. The crowd was then asked to hand over their weapons, and then the Arabic-speaking officer turned to converse with his troops, after which machine guns on top of the armoured cars opened fire and killed some 70 villagers. The corpses were left to rot for four days, and then Israeli bulldozers came and piled them into the mosque, which was then blown up with explosives. Many villagers hoped to return, waiting nearby in Lebanese villages with relatives, but they ended up settling in the Tyre suburb of Shabriha.

After the assault was over, the remaining inhabitants of the village were expelled, forming part of the Palestinian exodus of 1948. Nahmani, speaking of the 67 men and women gunned down in the village square, asked himself in his papers: 'Where did they come by such a measure of cruelty, like Nazis? . . Is there no more humane way of expelling the inhabitants than by such methods?'.

Salman Abu-Sitta, author of the Atlas of Palestine, estimated that the number of Palestinian refugees from Saliha in 1998 was 7,622 people.

Israel

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Yiron.jpg" caption="Ceremony marking the establishment of Kibbutz [[Yiron]]. Saliha 20 May 1949"] ::

The Israeli Jewish localities of Yir'on and Avivim are located on the former lands of Saliha.

Of what remains of Saliha's built structures today, Walid Khalidi writes that, "The only remaining landmark is a long building (which may have been a school) with many high windows. The site is a flat, mostly cultivated area. The bulk of the surrounding land is planted by Israeli farmers with apple trees."

References

Bibliography

  • Agreement between His Majesty's Government and the French Government respecting the Boundary Line between Syria and Palestine from the Mediterranean to El Hámmé, Treaty Series No. 13 (1923), Cmd. 1910.
  • Biger, Gideon (1989), Geographical and other arguments in delimitation in the boundaries of British Palestine, in "International Boundaries and Boundary Conflict Resolution", IBRU Conference, , 41–61.
  • Biger, Gideon (1995), The encyclopedia of international boundaries, New York : Facts on File.
  • Biger, Gideon (2005), The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947. London: Routledge. .
  • Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, signed Dec. 23, 1920. Text available in American Journal of International Law, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1922, 122–126.
  • Gil-Har, Yitzhak (1993), British commitments to the Arabs and their application to the Palestine-Trans-Jordan boundary: The issue of the Semakh triangle, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.29, No.4, 690-70 1.
  • McTague, John (1982), Anglo-French Negotiations over the Boundaries of Palestine, 1919–1920, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, 101–112.
  • Moore, Dahlia; Aweiss, Salem. (2004) Bridges Over Troubled Water: A Comparative Study Of Jews, Arabs, and Palestinians. Praeger/Greenwood.
  • (pp. 473, 481, 484, 486, 501, 502)
  • Yusuf, Muhsin (1991), The Zionists and the process of defining the borders of Palestine, 1915–1923, Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1, 18–39.
  • US Department of State, International Boundary Study series: Iraq-Jordan, Iraq-Syria, Jordan-Syria, Israel-Lebanon.

References

  1. Morris, 2004, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PR16 xvi], village #34. Also gives cause of depopulation.
  2. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945''. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20I/Safad/Page-071.jpg 71] {{Webarchive. link. (2011-06-04)
  3. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. [http://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/yabber/census/VSpages/VS1945_p11.jpg 11]
  4. Morris, 2004, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PR22 xxii], Settlement #161, established 1949-50.
  5. Khalidi, 1992, p.492
  6. William Lancaster, Fidelity Lancaster, ''People, Land and Water in the Arab Middle East: Environments and Landscapes in the Bilâd ash-Shâm,'' Routledge 2013, p.98
  7. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Seven+Villages,+another+Lebanese-Israeli+complication-a0206496006 {{Bare URL inline. (May 2022)
  8. http://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/ibru/publications/full/bsb8-4_eshel.pdf {{Bare URL PDF. (March 2022)
  9. (2006). "Between Palestine and Lebanon: Seven Shi'i Villages as a Case Study of Boundaries, Identities, and Conflict". Middle East Journal.
  10. "The Franco-British [Boundary] Convention of December 23, 1920".
  11. Moore, 2004, p. 160.
  12. Morris, 2004, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PA498 498]
  13. link. (2011-07-19)
  14. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, pp. [https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp01conduoft#page/202/mode/1up 202] -[https://archive.org/stream/surveyofwesternp01conduoft#page/203/mode/1up 203], Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 492
  15. Danny Rubinstein. (4 August 2006). "The seven lost villages". Haaretz.
  16. Mills, 1932, p. [https://archive.org/details/CensusOfPalestine1931.PopulationOfVillagesTownsAndAdministrativeAreas 110]
  17. with 11,735 [[dunam]]s of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 7,401 dunams were allocated to cereals, 422 dunams were irrigated or used for orchards,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945''. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20II/Safad/Page-121.jpg 121]
  18. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. [http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/VillageStatistics/Table%20III/Safad/Page-171.jpg 171]
  19. Morris, 2004, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PA487 487]
  20. Rogan, 2007, p. 53.
  21. These estimates are based on documentary evidence that include a 6 November 1948 diary entry by Yosef Nahmani. When Nahmani's papers was first published by his commander [[Yosef Weitz]] in 1965, guided by propagandistic motives, he laundered it to remove details of atrocities such as those which took place in Saliha.Aida Essaid, [https://books.google.com/books?id=yNpJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA231 ''Zionism and Land Tenure in Mandate Palestine,''] Routledge 2013 p.231.
  22. Morris, 2004, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PA500 500]
  23. [[Robert Fisk]],''The Great War for Civilisation:The Conquest of the Middle East,'' (2005) Harper Perennial 2006 p0.457.
  24. Nicholas Blanford, [http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/1998/May-14/25712-zionisms-first-lebanese-victims-remembered.ashx 'Zionism’s first Lebanese victims remembered,'] [[The Daily Star (Lebanon). The Daily Star]] May 14, 1998.
  25. (25 June 2007). "Bibliography and References". Palestine Remembered.
  26. "Welcome to Saliha". Palestine Remembered.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

arab-villages-depopulated-during-the-1948-arab–israeli-warmassacres-in-israel-during-the-israeli–palestinian-conflictdistrict-of-safadzionist-political-violencemassacres-committed-by-israel