Damun

Damun
الدامون
Damun[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Al-Damun (click the buttons)
Damun
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 32°52′37″N 35°10′59″E / 32.87694°N 35.18306°E / 32.87694; 35.18306
Palestine grid167/254
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictAcre
Date of depopulation15–16 July 1948[2]
Area
 • Total
20.4 km2 (7.9 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total
1,310
Cause(s) of depopulationMilitary assault by Yishuv forces

Damun (Arabic: الدامون, romanized: al-Damūn), was a Palestinian Arab village located 11.5 kilometres (7.1 mi) from the Mediterranean port city of Acre that was depopulated during 1948 Arab-Israeli war. In 1945, Damun had 1,310 inhabitants, most of whom were Muslim and the remainder Christians. Damun bordered the Na'amin River (Belus River), which the village's inhabitants used as a source of irrigation and drinking water from installed wells.[3]

History

Excavations at the site has shown potsherds dating from the Late Bronze Age, up to and including Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman times.[4] It might be the village Damun in lower Galilee, noted in Roman times.[5]

Damun is mentioned in 11th-century Arabic and Persian sources. Local tradition then identified the village as containing the tomb of the prophet Dhul-Kifl, who is twice mentioned in the Qur'an. Despite general Islamic tradition claiming the tomb to be in al-Kifl near Najaf or Kifl Hares near Nablus, Nasir Khusraw, who visited the region in 1047, wrote "I reached a small cave, which is in Damun where I performed the ziyarat too, for it is said to be the tomb of Dhul-Kifl."[6][7]

After the Crusader invasion of Palestine in 1099, Damun became part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and was referred to by the Crusaders as Damar or Damor.[3] It remained in their hands when most of Palestine was conquered by the Ayyubids under Sultan Saladin in 1187.[6] In 1253 John Aleman, Lord of Caesarea, sold several villages, including Damun, to the Knights Hospitaller.[8][9][10] It was mentioned as part of the Crusaders' domain in the hudna (truce agreement) between the Acre-based Crusaders and the Mamluks under Sultan Qalawun in 1283.[6][11]

Ottoman Empire

Damun, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the defter (tax census) of 1596 the village was located in the Acre Nahiya (Subdistrict), part of the Safad Sanjak (District). The population consisted of 33 households and two bachelors, all Muslims. The inhabitants paid a fixed tax rate of 20% on wheat, barley, fruit trees, cotton, goats and beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues"; total revenue was 6,045 akçe.[12][a]

From the early 18th century to at least 1775, the village was controlled by the Zayadina, a local Arab family which rose to prominence in northern Palestine under the leadership of Sheikh Daher al-Umar. The village mosque was built by its multazim (tax farmer), Daher's uncle Ali ibn Salih al-Zaydani, in 1722–23. Inscriptions on the mosque provided key information about the genealogy of the Zayadina (namely the elusive name of Daher's grandfather) and included a poem dedicated to Ali ibn Salih.[6] In the late 18th century, Giovanni Mariti noted that around Damun and Mi'ar were two "delightful valleys, ornamented with groves and wild shrubs. The peasants who live in the hamlets around, enjoy a most pleasant situation."[13] A map by Pierre Jacotin from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 showed the place, named as Damoun.[14]

In 1875, Damun was prosperous with roughly 800 mostly Muslim inhabitants and two mosques. In addition to the purported tomb of Dhul-Kifl, there was a shrine dedicated to a certain Sheikh Abdallah on an adjacent hill. An elementary school for boys was founded by the Ottomans in 1886.[6][15][16] A population list from about 1887 showed that Damun had about 725 inhabitants, all Muslims.[17]

British Mandate

At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine, Damun had a population of 727, of whom 687 were Muslims and 40 were Christians.[18] All the Christians were Roman Catholic.[19] The population increased in the 1931 census to 917: 870 Muslims and 47 Christians, living in 183 houses.[20]

At the start of the 20th century, Damun's houses were clustered along one road. Beginning in 1935, the residents started to build them with reinforced concrete. The inhabitants drew their drinking water from nearby springs and irrigated some of their crops from the Na'amin River. They also engaged in skilled activities, particularly plaiting mats and baskets from esparto grass. The chief crops of Damun were wheat, sorghum, barley, and olives, but it was also well known for its watermelons and cantaloupes.[3]

In the 1945 statistics, the population of Damun was 1,310; 1,240 Muslims and 70 Christians,[21][22] The village's total land area was 20,357 dunams.[22] Plantations and irrigable land covered 709 dunams and 17,052 dunams were used for grains,[23] while built-up (urban) area of the village consisted of 111 dunams.[24]

1948 war and aftermath

Before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War the Haganah kept files on all the Palestinian villages. The 1947 entry for al-Damun listed 25 individuals suspected of involvement with the Palestinian nationalist movement.[25] In April 1948 Haganah reports say that the son of the main local landowner, Sadiq Karaman, paid the local Arab Liberation Army garrison P£5000 to leave, presumably in an attempt to keep the village from getting involved with the hostilities in the 1948 Palestine war.[26]

After the initial Israeli successes in the central Galilee during the first stage of Operation Dekel, units of the Haganah's Sheva Brigade moved westward and captured Damun, among other Arab localities, in the second stage of the operation on 15–16 July 1948. Palestinian historian Aref al-Aref dates its capture earlier, in May 1948, following the fall of Acre. Israeli historian Benny Morris said that inhabitants were demoralized by the fall of Acre and then Nazareth, and so fled during the bombardment that preceded the attack on the village. The remaining residents were expelled and Damun was razed according to both historians.[3]

The village's land is used for agriculture by residents of the Yas'ur kibbutz, which itself was built on the land of Birwa.[3] According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi in 1992, the site was "overgrown with thorns, cacti, olive trees, and pines. Stone and concrete rubble is scattered around it. The structure that formerly protected the central water source and regulated its flow stands untended and is collapsing in several places. The cemetery is extant, although the markers over a few graves are collapsing."[3] British historian Andrew Petersen writes that the village had a number of 18th or 19th-century stone houses, some which had decorated facades.[27]

Most of the inhabitants of Damun became internally displaced Palestinians, now citizens of Israel, living in the nearby Tamra, Kabul, I'billin, and to a lesser extent Shefa-Amr, Sha'ab and other towns and villages in its vicinity.[28][29][30] Descendants of the Zayadina, from the line of Ali, lived in Damun until 1948, after which they moved to Tamra and Kafr Manda.[31] In 2008, the number of refugees and their descendants was estimated at over 12,600.[28] Damun is among the Palestinian villages for which commemorative Marches of Return have taken place, typically as part of Nakba Day, such as the demonstrations organized by the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced.[32]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 Archived 2019-04-20 at the Wayback Machine writes that the Safad register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595–1596, but from 1548–1549

References

  1. ^ Palmer, 1881, p. 108
  2. ^ Morris, 2004, p. xvii, village #90. Also gives cause of depopulation.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Khalidi 1992, p. 11.
  4. ^ Ronen, 1966. Cited in Stern, 2010, Ed-Damun Final Report Archived 2012-08-26 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Tsafrir et al, 1994 (TIR), pp. 107−108; cited in Petersen, 2001, p. 131 Archived 2019-08-10 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ a b c d e Sharon 2004, pp. 7-9.
  7. ^ Le Strange 1890, pp. 435, 436.
  8. ^ Delaville Le Roulx 1883, p. 184.
  9. ^ Clermont-Ganneau 1888, pp. 309–310.
  10. ^ Röhricht 1893, p. 319, no. 1210.
  11. ^ Barag 1979, p. 209.
  12. ^ Hütteroth & Abdulfattah 1977, p. 193.
  13. ^ Mariti 1792, p. 343.
  14. ^ Karmon 1960, p. 162 Archived 2019-12-22 at the Wayback Machine.
  15. ^ Conder & Kitchener 1881, p. 270.
  16. ^ Guérin 1880, pp. 424-425.
  17. ^ Schumacher 1888, p. 176.
  18. ^ Barron 1923, p. 37.
  19. ^ Barron 1923, p. 50.
  20. ^ Mills 1932, p. 100.
  21. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics 1945, p. 4.
  22. ^ a b Hadawi 1970, p. 40Archived 2018-09-15 at the Wayback Machine.
  23. ^ Hadawi 1970, p. 80Archived 2018-09-15 at the Wayback Machine.
  24. ^ Hadawi 1970, p. 130 Archived 2018-09-15 at the Wayback Machine.
  25. ^ Pappe, 2006, p. 22
  26. ^ 15. April, note in the Haganah Archive, cited in Morris, 2004, pp. 97, 146
  27. ^ Petersen 2001, p. 131 Archived 2019-08-10 at the Wayback Machine.
  28. ^ a b Silbak 2023.
  29. ^ Al-Haj 2019.
  30. ^ Cohen 2010, pp. 100–103, 106.
  31. ^ Mazarib 2021, p. 38.
  32. ^ Charif, Maher. "Meanings of the Nakba". Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question – palquest. Retrieved 2023-12-05.

Bibliography

Further reading

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