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Hamama حمامةHamameh
People of Hamama with governor Aref al Aref and Julian Asquith, in 1943
Etymology: "dove"
1870s map 1940s map modern map 1940s with modern overlay map A series of historical maps of the area around Hamama (click the buttons)
HamamaLocation within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 31°41′35″N 34°35′32″E / 31.69306°N 34.59222°E / 31.69306; 34.59222
Palestine grid	111/122
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Gaza
Date of depopulation	4 November 1948
Area
• Total	41,366 dunams (41.4 km or 16.0 sq mi)
Population
• Total	5,070
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current Localities	Nitzanim, Beit Ezra, Eshkolot

Hamama (Arabic: حمامة; also known in Byzantine times as Peleia) was a Palestinian town of over 5,000 inhabitants that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It was located 24 kilometers north of Gaza. It was continuously inhabited from the Mamluk period (in the 13th century) until 1948.

Its ruins are today in the north of the Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Etymology

Hamama's earliest recorded name is Peleia, dating to the Roman period. It translates as "dove", and when the Arabs conquered it through the Rashidun Caliphate in the seventh century, the town received its Arabic name Hamama meaning "dove", reflecting its Byzantine roots.

Underlying Hamama's Late Ottoman and British Mandate toponymy, is a limited stratum of pre-Ottoman village names. To this pre-existing stratum, residents added new place names referring in cases to families living in or around the village. The great importance of land as the main means of production in Hamama’s agrarian society, is reflected by many place names relating to the soil and its characteristics.

History

In the fifth century CE, the site consisted of the Byzantine town of Peleia.

Remains from the fifth and sixth century CE have been found here, together with Byzantine ceramics. A fragment of a Greek stone inscription was discovered at this site and is currently held at the Louvre in Paris.

Hamama was located near the site of a battle in 1099 between the Crusaders and the Fatimids, resulting in a Crusader victory. Later Hamama passed into Muslim Mamluk hands.

During the Mandate time, the village was visited by inspectors from the Department of Antiquities who noted two mosques. One of these, known as Shaykh Ibrahim Abi Arqub, included marble columns and capitals in the iwan. The eponymous mosque was affiliated with a mujāhid and descendant of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb.The other mosque, known as Shaykh Hamid, also incorporated marble fragments. Neither of these mosques have survived. Mandatory archaeologists documented a marble slab (0.3x0.95 m) located on the western wall of the mosque of Ibrāhīm Abū ʿArqūb. This slab featured a nine-line Arabic inscription, now unfortunately lost, which was dated to 700 AH/1301 AD, and the content of which remains unrecorded.

By 1333/4 CE (734 H.) some of the income from the village formed part of a waqf of the tomb (turba) and madrasa of Aqbugha b. Abd Allah in Cairo. In 1432, it is reported that the Mamluk sultan Barsbay passed through the village. In this period, a renowned scholar and preacher at the al-Aqsa Mosque, Ahmad al-Shafi'i (1406–1465), was born there.

Ottoman era

Hamama, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517. In first Ottoman tax register of 1526/7 the village had a population of 31 Muslim households and one bachelor, and it belonged to the nahiya of Gaza (Gaza Sanjak). In the tax registers of 1596 it had a population of 84 Muslim households, an estimated 462 persons. The villagers paid taxes on goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 6,800 akçe. All of the revenue went to a waqf. Its residents came from various places, including the Hauran, and Egypt.

The seventeenth-century traveller al-Nabulsi recorded that the tomb (qabr) of Shaykh Ibrahim Abi Arqub was located in the village, while the Syrian Sufi teacher and traveller Mustafa al-Bakri al-Siddiqi (1688-1748/9) (ar) visited Hamama in the first half of the eighteenth century, after leaving al-Jura.

Marom and Taxel have shown that during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, nomadic economic and security pressures led to settlement abandonment around Majdal ‘Asqalān, and the southern coastal plain in general. The population of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, while the lands of abandoned settlements continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages. Thus, Hamama absorbed the lands of Ṣandaḥanna, Mi‘ṣaba, and excluded the lands of Bashsha, an exclave of al-Majdal.

Hamama appears on Jacotin's map drawn-up during Napoleon's invasion in 1799, though its position is interchanged with that of Majdal. In 1838, Hamameh was noted as a Muslim village in the Gaza district.

Local administrative restructuring began in the 1860s as tanzimat reforms were implemented at the district level. The construction of the "quarter system"—the partition of village land among groups of families—led to significant economic development, as evidenced by village land usage in the early twentieth century.

In 1863, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village, and noted a mosque constructed with ancient materials. The village had a population of "at least eight hundred souls". He further noted: "The gardens of Hamama are outstandingly fertile. They are divided by living fences of huge cactus pears, and are planted with olive, fig, pomegranate, mulberry and apricot trees. Here and there slender palm trees and broad treetops of sycamore trees rise above them."

An official Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed that Hamame had 193 houses and a population of 635, although it only counted the men.

British Mandate era

Under the British Mandate in Palestine, a village council was established to administer local affairs, and Hamama had a mosque, and two primary schools for boys and girls established in 1921. British Mandate Ḥamāma had pre-planned new communities erected around the original village nucleus, with crisscrossed pathways separating the new residential quarters.

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Hamama had a population of 2,731; 2,722 Muslims and 9 Christians, where all the Christians were Orthodox. The population had increased in the 1931 census to 3,405; 3,401 Muslims and 4 Christians, in a total of 865 houses.

In the 1945 statistics Hamama had a population of 5,070; 5,000 Muslims, 10 Christians and 60 Jews, with a total of 41,366 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,356 dunams were used for citrus and bananas, 4,459 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 28,890 for cereals, while 167 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

In the 1940s, British officials paved the road to the village for year-round automobile access.

In 1946, the boys' school had an enrollment of 338, and the girls' school an enrollment of 46. Its inhabitants engaged primarily in fishing and agriculture, cultivating grain, citrus, apricots, almonds, figs, olives, watermelons, and cantaloupes. Due to the existence of sand dunes in the north part of the town, trees were planted on parts of those lands to prevent soil erosion.

In addition to agriculture, residents practiced animal husbandry which formed was an important source of income for the village. In 1943, they owned 405 heads of cattle, 310 sheep over a year old, 172 goats over a year old, 228 camels, 11 horses, 9 mules, 567 donkey, 2963 fowls, 454 pigeons.

1948, and aftermath

According to reports published by the newspaper Felesteen, Hamama was first drawn into the 1948 Arab-Israeli War after a group of workers from the town laboring in the adjacent fields were struck by Jewish residents from Nitzanim on January 22, 1948, leaving fifteen Arabs wounded. Two days later, a unit from Nitzanim opened fire on Hamama residents, killing one, and on February 17, a group of workers waiting for a bus on the road between Isdud and the town were fired upon, wounding two.

It was captured by Israel from the Egyptian Army in the first stage of Operation Yoav on October 28. By then several refugees from nearby towns were in Hamama, most of them, along with many of Hamama's residents, fled with the withdrawing Egyptian troops.

At the end of November 1948, Coastal Plain District troops carried out sweeps of the villages around and to the south of Majdal. Hamama was one of the villages named in the orders to the IDF battalions and engineers platoon, that the villagers were to be expelled to Gaza, and the IDF troops were "to prevent their return by destroying their villages." The path leading to the village was to be mined. The IDF troops were ordered to carry out the operation "with determination, accuracy and energy". The operation took place on 30 November. The troops found "not a living soul" in Hamama. However, the destruction of the villages was not completed immediately due to the dampness of the houses and the insufficient amount of explosives.

Mohammed Dahlan's family is originally from Hamama.

In 1992 it was noted: "No traces of village houses or landmarks remain. The site is overgrown with wild vegetation, including tall grasses, weeds, and bushes. It also contains cactuses. The surrounding land is unused."

References

1. Conder and Kitchener, SWP II, 1882, p. 418
2. Palmer, 1881, p. 267
3. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 31
4. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 45
5. Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #286. Also gives the cause of depopulation.
6. ^ Khalidi, 1992, p. 100
7. ^ Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2024-10-10). "Hamama: The Palestinian Countryside in Bloom (1750–1948)". Journal of Islamic Archaeology. 11 (1): 83–110. doi:10.1558/jia.26586. ISSN 2051-9729.
8. Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2023-10-01). "Ḥamāma: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan's hinterland, 1270–1750 CE". Journal of Historical Geography. 82: 49–65. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003. ISSN 0305-7488.
9. Marom, Roy. "Arabic Toponymy around Ashkelon: The Village of Hamama as a Case Study". escholarship.org. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
10. ^ Khalidi, 1992, pp. 97-98
11. Dauphin, 1998, p. 869
12. "XIV. Hamama", Volume 3 South Coast: 2161-2648, De Gruyter, pp. 231–232, 2014-07-14, doi:10.1515/9783110337679.231, ISBN 978-3-11-033767-9, retrieved 2024-02-23
13. ^ Petersen, 2001, p. 146
14. MPF, 10 No. 30. Cited in Petersen, 2001, p. 146
15. Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2023-10-01). "Ḥamāma: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan's hinterland, 1270–1750 CE". Journal of Historical Geography. 82: 49–65. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003. ISSN 0305-7488.
16. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 142. Cited in Khalidi, 1992, p. 98.
17. Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 382
18. Khalidi, 1992, p. 98.
19. Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2023-10-01). "Ḥamāma: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan's hinterland, 1270–1750 CE". Journal of Historical Geography. 82: 49–65. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003. ISSN 0305-7488.
20. Karmon, 1960, p. 173 Archived 2019-12-22 at the Wayback Machine
21. Palestine Exploration Quarterly Jan-Apr 1944. Jacotin's Map of Palestine. D.H.Kellner. p. 161.
22. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 118
23. Guérin, 1869, pp. 129 -130
24. translated by Moshe Gilad, 'This Explorer Visited Israel in the 19th Century and Found It to Be Anything but Empty', 22 February 2022, Haaretz
25. Socin, 1879, p. 154
26. Hartmann, 1883, p. 131, noted 291 houses
27. ^ Khalidi, 1992, p. 99
28. Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Gaza, p. 8
29. Barron, 1923, Table XIII, p. 44
30. Mills, 1932, p. 3
31. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 86
32. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 136
33. Elhassani, Abdelkarim (2012). From Hamama to Montreal. Xlibris Corporation LLC. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-4797-4125-0.
34. Morris, 1987, p.220, quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p.99.
35. Coastal Plain District HQ to battalions 151 and ´1 Volunteers`, etc., 19:55 hours, 25 Nov. 1948, IDFA (=Israeli Defence Forces and Defence Ministry Archive) 6308\49\\141. Cited in Morris, 2004, p. 517
36. Coastal Plain HQ to Southern Front\Operations, 30 Nov. 1948, IDFA 1978\50\\1; and Southern Front\Operations to General Staff Divisions, 2. Dec. 1948, IDFA 922\75\\1025. Cited in Morris, 2004, p. 518

Bibliography

• Barron, J.B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
• Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Dauphin, C. (1998). La Palestine byzantine, Peuplement et Populations. BAR International Series 726 (in French). Vol. III : Catalogue. Oxford: Archeopress. ISBN 0-860549-05-4.
• Elhassani, Abdelkarim (2012). From Hamama to Montreal. Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 9781479741243.
• Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945.
• Guérin, V. (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 1: Judee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
• Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
• Hartmann, M. (1883). "Die Ortschaftenliste des Liwa Jerusalem in dem türkischen Staatskalender für Syrien auf das Jahr 1288 der Flucht (1871)". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 6: 102–149.
• Hütteroth, W.-D.; Abdulfattah, K. (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.
• Karmon, Y. (1960). "An Analysis of Jacotin's Map of Palestine" (PDF). Israel Exploration Journal. 10 (3, 4): 155–173, 244–253. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-12-22. Retrieved 2018-10-05.
• Khalidi, W. (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. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
• Morris, B. (1987). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949. Cambridge University Press.
• Morris, B. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
• MPF: Ipsirli and al-Tamimi (1982): The Muslim Pious Foundations and Real Estates in Palestine. Gazza, Al-Quds al-Sharif, Nablus and Ajlun Districts according to 16th-Century Ottoman Tahrir Registers, Organisation of Islamic Conference, Istanbul 1402/1982. Cited in Petersen (2001).
• 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.
• Petersen, Andrew (2001). A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology). Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-727011-0.
• Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.
• Socin, A. (1879). "Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 2: 135–163.

External links

• Hamama's official site
• Welcome To Hamama, at Palestine Remembered.
• Hamama, Zochrot
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Hamama from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center

v t e Palestinian Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus by subdistrict
Acre	Amqa Arab al-Samniyya al-Bassa al-Birwa al-Damun Dayr al-Qassi al-Ghabisiyya Iqrit Iribbin Jiddin al-Kabri Kafr 'Inan Kuwaykat al-Manshiyya al-Mansura Mi'ar al-Nabi Rubin al-Nahr al-Ruways Suhmata al-Sumayriyya Suruh al-Tall Tarbikha Umm al-Faraj az-Zeeb
Beisan	Arab al-'Arida Arab al-Bawati Arab al-Safa al-Ashrafiyya al-Bira Beisan Danna Farwana al-Fatur al-Ghazzawiyya al-Hamidiyya al-Hamra Jabbul Kafra Kawkab al-Hawa al-Khunayzir Masil al-Jizl al-Murassas Qumya al-Sakhina al-Samiriyya Sirin Tall al-Shawk al-Taqa al-Tira Umm 'Ajra Umm Sabuna Yubla Zab'a al-Zawiya
Beersheba	al-Imara al-Jammama al-Khalasa Auja al-Hafir
Gaza	Arab Suqrir Barbara Barqa al-Batani al-Gharbi al-Batani al-Sharqi Bayt 'Affa Bayt Daras Bayt Jirja Bayt Tima Bil'in Burayr Dayr Sunayd Dimra al-Faluja Hamama Hatta Hiribya Huj Hulayqat Ibdis Iraq al-Manshiyya Iraq Suwaydan Isdud al-Jaladiyya al-Jiyya Julis al-Jura Jusayr Karatiyya Kawfakha Kawkaba al-Khisas al-Masmiyya al-Kabira al-Masmiyya al-Saghira al-Muharraqa Najd Ni'ilya Qastina al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya al-Sawafir al-Shamaliyya al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya Simsim Summil Tall al-Turmus Yasur
Haifa	Abu Shusha Abu Zurayq Arab al-Fuqara Arab al-Nufay'at Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri 'Atlit Ayn Ghazal Ayn Hawd Balad al-Sheikh Barrat Qisarya Burayka al-Burj al-Butaymat Daliyat al-Rawha' al-Dumun al-Ghubayya al-Fawqa al-Ghubayya al-Tahta Hawsha Ijzim Jaba' al-Jalama Kabara al-Kafrayn Kafr Lam al-Kasayir Khubbayza Lid al-Manara al-Mansi al-Mansura al-Mazar Naghnaghiya Qannir Qira Qisarya Qumbaza al-Rihaniyya Sabbarin al-Sarafand al-Sarkas Sa'sa' al-Sawamir al-Shuna al-Sindiyana al-Tantura al-Tira Umm ash Shauf Umm az-Zinat Wa'arat al-Sarris Wadi Ara Yajur
Hebron	'Ajjur Barqusya Bayt Jibrin Bayt Nattif al-Dawayima Deir al-Dubban Dayr Nakhkhas Kudna Mughallis al-Qubayba Ra'na Tell es-Safi Umm Burj az-Zakariyya Zayta Zikrin
Jaffa	al-'Abbasiyya Abu Kabir Abu Kishk Bayt Dajan Biyar 'Adas Fajja al-Haram Ijlil al-Qibliyya Ijlil al-Shamaliyya al-Jammasin al-Gharbi al-Jammasin al-Sharqi Jarisha Kafr 'Ana al-Khayriyya al-Mas'udiyya al-Mirr al-Muwaylih Rantiya al-Safiriyya Salama Saqiya al-Sawalima al-Shaykh Muwannis Yazur
Jenin	al-Jawfa al-Mazar Ayn al-Mansi Lajjun Nuris Zir'in
Jerusalem	Allar Aqqur Artuf Bayt 'Itab Bayt Mahsir Bayt Naqquba Bayt Thul Bayt Umm al-Mays al-Burayj Dayr Aban Dayr 'Amr Dayr al-Hawa Dayr Rafat Dayr al-Shaykh Deir Yassin Ayn Karim Ishwa Islin Ism Allah Jarash al-Jura Kasla al-Lawz Lifta al-Maliha Nitaf al-Qabu Qalunya al-Qastal Ras Abu 'Ammar Sar'a Saris Sataf Sheikh Badr Suba Sufla al-Tannur al-'Umur al-Walaja
Nazareth	al-Mujaydil Indur Ma'alul Saffuriyya
Ramle	Abu al-Fadl Abu Shusha Ajanjul Aqir Barfiliya al-Barriyya Bashshit Bayt Far Bayt Jiz Bayt Nabala Bayt Shanna Bayt Susin Bir Ma'in Bir Salim al-Burj al-Buwayra Daniyal Dayr Abu Salama Dayr Ayyub Dayr Muhaysin Dayr Tarif al-Duhayriyya al-Haditha Idnibba Innaba Jilya Jimzu Kharruba al-Khayma Khulda al-Kunayyisa al-Latrun Lydda al-Maghar Majdal Yaba al-Mansura al-Mukhayzin al-Muzayri'a al-Na'ani al-Nabi Rubin Qatra Qazaza al-Qubab al-Qubayba Qula Ramla Sajad Salbit Sarafand al-Amar Sarafand al-Kharab Saydun Shahma Shilta al-Tina al-Tira Umm Kalkha Wadi Hunayn Yibna Zakariyya Zarnuqa
Safad	Abil al-Qamh al-'Abisiyya 'Akbara Alma Ammuqa Arab al-Shamalina Arab al-Zubayd Ayn al-Zaytun Baysamun Biriyya al-Butayha al-Buwayziyya Dallata al-Dawwara Dayshum al-Dirbashiyya al-Dirdara Fara al-Farradiyya Fir'im Ghabbatiyya Ghuraba al-Hamra' Harrawi Hunin al-Husayniyya Jahula al-Ja'una Jubb Yusuf Kafr Bir'im al-Khalisa Khan al-Duwayr Karraza al-Khisas Khiyam al-Walid Kirad al-Baqqara Kirad al-Ghannama Lazzaza Madahil Al-Malkiyya Mallaha al-Manshiyya al-Mansura Mansurat al-Khayt Marus Meiron al-Muftakhira Mughr al-Khayt al-Muntar al-Nabi Yusha' al-Na'ima Qabba'a Qadas Qaddita Qaytiyya al-Qudayriyya al-Ras al-Ahmar Sabalan Safsaf Saliha al-Salihiyya al-Sammu'i al-Sanbariyya Sa'sa' al-Shawka al-Tahta al-Shuna Taytaba Tulayl al-'Ulmaniyya al-'Urayfiyya al-Wayziyya Yarda, Safad al-Zahiriyya al-Tahta al-Zanghariyya Zawiya al-Zuq al-Fawqani al-Zuq al-Tahtani
Tiberias	Awlam al-Dalhamiyya Ghuwayr Abu Shusha Hadatha al-Hamma Hittin Kafr Sabt Lubya Ma'dhar al-Majdal al-Manara al-Manshiyya al-Mansura Nasir al-Din Nimrin al-Nuqayb Samakh al-Samakiyya al-Samra al-Shajara al-Tabigha al-'Ubaydiyya Wadi Hamam al-Wa'ra al-Sawda' Yaquq
Tulkarm	Bayt Lid Bayyarat Hannun Fardisya Ghabat Kafr Sur al-Jalama Kafr Saba al-Majdal al-Manshiyya Miska Qaqun Raml Zayta Tabsur Umm Khalid Wadi al-Hawarith Wadi Qabbani al-Zabadida Zalafa

• District of Gaza
• Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War