Summary
Coastal village of 3,000 south of Haifa, founded about 250 years before 1948 by people who had come from the Sudan, bombed on 26 July 1948 during the second truce as its people broke the Ramadan fast in the street; seventeen selected men were killed on the spot and the rest expelled, in Pappe’s account.
Details
- Ayn Ghazal’s houses were mainly concrete, atypical of the area, many with special wells and holes sometimes three metres deep in which wheat was kept; the village hosted the maqam of the holy man Shaykh Shehadeh, a popular destination for many Muslims (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.198).
- Some of its people had taken refuge in the only two villages left intact on the coast out of the original sixty-four — Furaydis and Jisr al-Zarqa — whose elderly members have tried since 1948 to maintain the maqam; the Israeli authorities declared the maqam a holy Jewish site, and the refugee Ali Hamuda safeguarded it and kept its Muslim character alive, although he was fined and threatened with arrest for renovating it in 1985 (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.198).
- Its people rejoiced when the second truce came into effect and relaxed their guard; on 26 July most villagers were in the street in the afternoon to break the Ramadan fast, gathering at the village centre’s coffeehouses, when an aeroplane dropped a bomb that scored a direct hit on the crowd (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.198-199).
- The men were ordered to gather in one place; the hooded informer and the intelligence officer appeared, seventeen men were selected, largely for having taken part in the 1936 Revolt, and killed on the spot; the rest were expelled (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.199).
- Sitta’s register lists Ayn Ghazal at S 280: depopulation date 23-07-48 with the note “Little Triangle”, Exodus Causes M, Arab Population 48 of 2,517 on 18,079 dunums, operation st (The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, PDF p.9). Pappe dates Ayn Ghazal’s bombing to 26 July 1948; the register’s depopulation date is three days earlier, and both are kept as printed.
Related pages
The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ijzim, 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine