Ni'ilya

Ni'ilya
Arabic
District	Gaza
Population	1310 (1945)
Area
Date of depopulation	November 4-5, 1948[1]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Ashkelon

Ni'ilya was a Palestinian Arab village in the District of Gaza. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on November 4, 1948 under Operation Yo'av. It was located 19 km northeast of Gaza in the city territory of modern Ashkelon. The village was defended by the Egyptian Army.

A 1596 census revealed a population of 440; by 1945 this had increased to 1310.

Ni'ilya students attended school in al-Majdal city. A school was built in the village in 1948 shortly before the war but never opened. The village had a mosque and tombs of people who were killed while battling the Crusades.

References

1. ^ Morris, 2004, village #309, p xix. Also gives the cause for depopulation

Bibliography

• Hadawi, Sami (1970), Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General-2/Story3150.html 
• 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 
• Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521009676. http://books.google.com/?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=benny+morris&q. 

See also

• Welcome To Ni'ilya
• Ni'ilya from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center