Al-Tira, Ramle

See Tira for other sites with similar names.

Al-Tira
Remains of the mosque of Al-Tira
Al-Tira
Name meaning	"The Fort"
Subdistrict	Ramle
Coordinates
Palestine grid	144/158
Population	1290 (1945)
Date of depopulation	July 10, 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Tirat Yehuda, Giv'at Ko'ah, Bareket

Al-Tira was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War on July 10, 1948 by the Alexandroni and Armored (Eighth) brigades under Operation Dani. It was located 12 km northeast of Ramla. al-Tira was mostly destroyed with the exception of a few houses survived destruction.

History

A cistern, dating from the pre-Byzantine era, have been excavated.

Ottoman era

In 1517, Tira was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire along with the rest of Palestine, and by 1596 it was a part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla, which was under the administration of the liwa ("district") of Gaza. A village of 160, it paid taxes on wheat, barley, vineyards, fruit trees, beehives, and goats.

In 1870, Victor Guérin found it to be a “village of seven hundred inhabitants, with gardens planted with fig trees and pomegranates, separated from each other by hedges of cactus.” Guérin also found here caves and a tomb cut in the rock; also, still standing, the door of an ancient house, its two jambs formed of great cut stones covered by a splendid block forming the lintel, and formerly decorated by mouldings, now effaced.

In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it as: "A mud village of moderate size, with cactus hedges, situated at the edge of the plain, the hills rising behind; on the west, by the high road, is a good well, with remains of masonry."

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Tireh had a population of 705, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 892, still all Muslims, in a total of 225 houses.

An elementary school was founded in 1922, and by 1947-48, it had an enrollment of 110 boys and 22 girls.

In 1945 the population was 1,290, all Arabs, while the total land area was 6,956 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 78 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 5,551 for cereals, while 45 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

al-'Umari Mosque was one of the notable landmarks.

1948, and aftermath

The Israeli settlements of Tirat Yehuda, Giv'at Ko'ah and Bareket are all on the land of Al-Tira.

Bibliography

• (p.378)
• al-Qawuqji, Fauzi (1972): Memoirs of al-Qawuqji, Fauzi in Journal of Palestine Studies
  • "Memoirs, 1948, Part I" in 1, no. 4 (Sum. 72): 27-58., dpf-file, downloadable
  • "Memoirs, 1948, Part II" in 2, no. 1 (Aut. 72): 3-33., dpf-file, downloadable

External links

• Welcome To al-Tira
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Israeli map of al-Tira in 1948: NLI