Kharruba

Kharruba
Kharruba, 2008
Kharruba
Name meaning	The carob, or locust tree Ceratonia siliqua[1]
Subdistrict	Ramle
Coordinates	31°54′44″N 34°57′38″E / 31.91222°N 34.96056°ECoordinates: 31°54′44″N 34°57′38″E / 31.91222°N 34.96056°E
Palestine grid	146/146
Population	170 (1945)
Date of depopulation	July 12–15, 1948[2]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces

Kharruba was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine, near Modi'in. It was located 8 km east of Ramla. It was depopulated on July 12, 1948 during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

History

Kharruba appeared in Ottoman tax registers compiled in 1596 under the name of Harnuba, in the Nahiyas of Ramla, of the Gaza Sanjak. It was indicated as empty (hali), though 25% taxes were paid on agricultural products. These included wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, sesame, goats, beehives, in an addition to occasional revenues; a total of 4,000 akçe.^[3]

In 1863, Victor Guérin described Kharruba as a hamlet of a few huts. He noticed the remains of a medieval fort and suggested it might be the Crusader castle Arnaldi.^[4] The following decade, the Survey of Western Palestine found only ruins.^[5]

At the time of the 1931 census, Kharruba had 21 occupied houses and a population of 119 inhabitants, all Muslims.^[6] In 1945, the village had a population of 170,^[7] all Muslims.^[8] The total land area was3,374 dunams,^[7] of this, a total of 1,620 dunums were used for cereals, 25 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards,^[9] while 3 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.^[10]

It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War on July 12, 1948 by the Yiftach Brigade which reported that it had blown up the houses and "cleared the village".^[11]

In 1992, the site consisted of stony rubble overgrown with vegetation.^[12]

Archaeology

A site called Haruba is mentioned in the Copper Scroll, the only one of the Dead Sea Scrolls engraved on copper rather than written on parchment. Modern scholars do not believe it to be the site mentioned in the scroll.^[13]

In 2012, five suspected antiquities robbers were caught at Kharruba, after damaging a mikveh (ritual bath) dating to the Second Temple period and trenches used as hiding places during the Bar Kokhba revolt.^[13]

References

1. Palmer, 1881, p. 299
2. Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #242. Also gives cause of depopulation
3. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 152
4. Guérin, 1868, pp. 317–318. However, the modern identification of Arnaldi is Yalo.(Denys Pringle (1991). "Survey of Castles in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1989: Preliminary Report". Levant. XXIII: 87–91. doi:10.1179/lev.1991.23.1.87.)
5. Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 104
6. Mills, 1932, p. 21
7. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 67
8. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 29
9. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 115
10. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 165
11. Morris, 2004, p. 435
12. Khalidi, 1992, p. 388
13. The document is said to provide clues to the whereabouts of the legendary treasures of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The scroll states: "In the ruin (Hurba) that is in the valley of Achor, under/the steps, with the entrance at the East,/a distance of 40 cubits: a strongbox of silver and its vessels / with a weight of 17 talents." In consequence, many treasure hunters have flocked to Kharruba over the years, No gold in them hills, Haaretz

Bibliography

• Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, Herbert H. (1883). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 3. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
• Guérin, Victor (1868). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 1: Judee, pt. 1. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
• Guérin, Victor (1875). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 2: Samarie, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale. (p. 394)
• Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
• Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (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, Walid (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.
• Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas (PDF). Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
• Morris, Benny (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.

External links

• Welcome To Kharruba
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17: IAA, Wikimedia commons