- Abu Shusha
Infobox Former Arab villages in Palestine
name=Abu Shusha
imgsize=
caption=
arname=ابو شوشة
meaning=
altSp=
district=rl
population=720
popyear=1945
area=8,960
areakm=9.0
date=April-May1948
cause=M
*=E
curlocl=Ameilim Abu Shusha ( _ar. ابو شوشة) was an
Arab village inPalestine , 8 km southeast ofRamle . It was depopulated in 1948 and later demolished byIsrael i forces. [http://ipsnewsite.mysite4now.com/enakba/exodus/Flapan,%20The%20Palestinian%20Exodus%20of%201948.pdf Simha Flapan,] "The Palestinian Exodus of 1948" in 16, no. 4 (Sum. 87): 3-26.Simha Flapan records Eliezer Bauer of the HaShomer Hatiz kibbutz and a member of the Mapam Arab Department reporting during a discusion that the villagers of Abu Zrik and Abu Shusha were arrested or driven out and the villages were then destroyed.]Abu Shusha was located on the slope of Tel Jazar, which is commonly identified with the ancient city of
Gezer . The Crusaders won a battle againstSaladin there in1177 . The Arab village was built at the beginning of the 19th century. [Ruth Kark, Changing patterns of landownership in nineteenth-century Palestine: the European influence, "Journal of Historical Geography", vol 14, no 4 (1984) 357-384.] The population, consisting of Muslim Arabs, was 627 in 1931 and 870 in 1944. The village produced cereals and olives. [W. Khalidi, "All That Remains", p. 357-358.]In April-May 1948, during the
1948 Arab-Israeli War , Abu Shusha was attacked several times. The final assault began on May 13, one day prior to Israel's declaration of independence. Abu Shusha residents attempted to defend the village, but the village was occupied on May 14. Those residents who had not already died or fled were expelled by May 21. [B. Morris, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisted". Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 256-257] With their descendants, they numbered about 6198 as of1998 .The Israeli town of
Ameilim was founded nearby later in 1948.Allegations of a massacre
According to
Benny Morris , the village was attacked by the Giv'ati Brigade on May 13-14, 1948 duringOperation Maccabi . A few inhabitants fled but most remained. Some houses were blown up. The Giv'ati troops were immediately replaced by militia men from Kibbutz Gezer, who were later replaced by troops fromKiryati Brigade . [Morris, p. 205] On May 19, Arab Legion sources claimed that villagers were being killed. On May 21, Arab authorities appealed to the Red Cross to stop "barbaric acts" they said were being committed in Abu Shusha. [Morris, "loc cit.] More recently, research conducted byBirzeit University , mostly on the basis of interviews with former residents, suggests that between 60-70 residents were killed or massacred during the attack. [Birzeit University series on Palestinian destroyed villages, 276 page report on Abu Shusha; some information here: [http://web.archive.org/web/20031205170448/www.birzeit.edu/ourvoice/history/jan99/destvil.html] ] In 1995 a mass grave with 52 skeletons was discovered, but their cause of death is undetermined. [M. Benvenisti, "City of Stone", p. 248]References
ee also
*
List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
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