Sarafand al-Kharab

Sarafand al-Kharab
Sarafand al-Kharab
Arabic	صرفند الخراب
District	Ramla
Coordinates	31°56′10.75″N 34°48′20.3″E / 31.9363194°N 34.805639°E / 31.9363194; 34.805639Coordinates: 31°56′10.75″N 34°48′20.3″E / 31.9363194°N 34.805639°E / 31.9363194; 34.805639
Population	1,040 (1945)
Area	5,503 (3,545 Arab-owned, 1,611 Jewish-owned, 347 public lands)[1] dunums 5.5 km²
Date of depopulation	April 20 1948[2]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Fear of being caught up in the fighting

Sarafand al-Kharab Arabic: صرفند الخراب‎) was a Palestinian Arab village located 50 meters (160 ft) above sea level, 7 kilometers (4.3 mi) west of al-Ramla, in the area that is today north-east of Ness Ziona.^[3]

History

An Arabic inscription on a slab of marble, held in the private collection of Baron d'Ustinow, was found in Sarafand al-Kharab. Dating to the Fatimid period (1048-1048) and thought to have been brought to the village from Ashkelon, it states: "The slave of amir al-mu'minin may Allah bless him and his pure ancestors, and his noble descendants. And he was then in charge of ... in the border stronghold of Ashqelon in the month of (?) of Rabi' II of the year 440."^[4]

Sarafand al-Kharab was one of a number of villages in the Lydda-Ramle district of Mandate Palestine whose equine population was struck by an epidemic of African horse sickness in 1944, resulting in "stand-still" orders preventing the movement of horses outside of town between September and November 1944 and the deaths of 730 horses in the district.^[5]

References

1. ^ Hadawi, 1970, p. 117.
2. ^ Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #234. Also gives cause of depopulation.
3. ^ "Sarafand al-Kharab". Palestine Remembered. http://www.palestineremembered.com/al-Ramla/Sarafand-al-Kharab/index.html. Retrieved 2009-08-12. 
4. ^ Sharon, 1997, pp. 151-152.
5. ^ El-Eini, 2006, p. 399.

Bibliography

• El-Eini, Roza (2006). Mandated landscape: British imperial rule in Palestine, 1929-1948 (Illustrated ed.). Routledge. ISBN 0714654264, 978071465426. http://books.google.com/?id=kC_FczRLCucC&pg=PA399&dq=sarafand+kharab&q=sarafand%20kharab. 
• 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 0521009677, 9780521009676 
• Sharon, Moshe (1997). Handbuch der Orientalistik. BRILL. ISBN 9004108335, 9789004108332. http://books.google.com/?id=j1rSzWgHMjoC&pg=RA1-PA151&dq=sarafand+kharab&q=sarafand%20kharab.