Yazur

Yazur (Arabic:يازور) was a Palestinian town located 6 kilometers east of Jaffa that was depopulated in the lead up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. According to a 1945 census conducted by the Mandatory authorities in Palestine, Yazur had a population of 4,030, mostly Muslim Arabs with a small Arab Christian community of 20 people. Its total land area consisted of 11,807 dunum of mostly cultivable land.

The town is the birthplace of Ahmed Jibril, the founder and current head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC). On December 11, 1947 members of a pro-Zionist armed group attacked a coffee shop in the town and reportedly killed six men. [ [http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jaffa/Yazur/index.html Palestine Remembered - Yazur] ] Before the official outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Yazur was being guarded by the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) who defenders and inhabitants left the town before it was seized by pre-state Israeli forces during an offensive that was part of Operation Chametz on April 30 1948. Currently, the Israeli town of Azor is located on the former town's land.

History, pre-1948

The village is mentioned in the annals of the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib as Azuro. In the twelfth century the Muslims and Crusaders contested the village and it changed hands several times.Harvnb|Khalidi|1992|p=261 ]

The Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi described Yazur as a small town that was the birthplace of several important figures during the Fatamid period, most prominently al-Hasan ibn ´Ali al-Yazuri, who became a prominent minister in A.D. 1050.

In 1596 Ijzim was a village in the "nahiya" of Ramla ("liwa´" of Gaza), with a population of 275. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, fruit, and sesame as well as on other types of property, such as goats and beehives. [Hütteroth, Wolf-Deiter and Kamal Abdulfattah (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. p. 155. Quoted in Harvnb|Khalidi|1992|p=261 ]

In 1870 Charles Netter from Alliance Israélite Universelle founded the Mikveh Israel southeast of Jaffa. Through a firman of the sultan, he received land for the school which until then had been worked by the fellahin of the village of Yazur. "Though the land belongs to the Government, the Fellahin, from long usage, have got to look upon it as virtually their own, and resent its occupation by any other person." The peasants therefore became bitter enemies of the school farm. [SWP (Survey of Western Palestine), Samaria, pp. 256f. Quoted in Alexander Schölch (1993): "Palestine in Transformation, 1856-1882," ISBN 0887282342, p.281.]

In the late summer of 1870 the governor of Damascus visited Jaffa. Accompanied by Netter and the Templars Hoffamnn and Ernst Hardegg, he also passed Yasur:

While riding between Natter´s property and the city, the Wali was beset by Arab women and men who begged him, holding onto the reigns of his mule, and onto his trousers, to help them regain their rights, the Jews were taking away their land; here they pointed at Natter, who rode next to the Wali, screaming "the Jews, the Jews." The Pasha, riding on the other side, asked Ernst for his riding crop and chased them away himself. The Wali accepted a petition handed him by a "shaykh", incidentally. ["Die Warte", 29 September 1870, Quoted in Alexander Schölch (1993), p.281.]

Historical structures

In the town of Yazur, the remains of an old Crusader church built by Richard the Lionheart called "Castel des Plaines" exist as a destroyed multi-domed mosque, the only mosque in Yazur. There are two shrines still located in the town with no considerable damage. One of the shrines is dedicated to a local sage known as Sayyidna Haydara. It is unknown to whom the other shrine is dedicated.

Persons associated with Yazur

* Ahmed Jibril - founder and head of PFLP-GC
* Hassan ibn Ali al-Yazuri - Fatimid minister in 1095 AD

See also

* List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
* Salama (town), for what happened in 1948

References

Further reading

*cite book|last= Khalidi |first= Walid |authorlink= Walid Khalidi |title= All that Remains |origyear= 1992 |publisher= Institute for Palestine Studies |location= Washington DC |isbn= 0887282245 |ref= CITEREFKhalidi1992

*Benvenisti, Meron (2000): "Sacred Landscape: Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948", University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21154-5, p. 32-33, 292