Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya

Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya السوافير الشرقية Suafir Abu Huwar; from an inhabitant who died in the 19th century[1]
Etymology: The eastern nomads.[1]
1870s map 1940s map modern map 1940s with modern overlay map A series of historical maps of the area around Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya (click the buttons)
Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 31°42′00″N 34°42′45″E / 31.70000°N 34.71250°E / 31.70000; 34.71250
Palestine grid	122/123
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Gaza
Date of depopulation	May 18, 1948[4]
Area [3]
• Total	13,831 dunams (13.831 km2 or 5.340 sq mi)
Population  (1945)
• Total	970[2][3]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Fear of being caught up in the fighting
Current Localities	Ein Tzurim,[5] Shafir,[5] Zrahia,[5] Nir Banim[5]

Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya was a Palestinian Arab village in the Gaza Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 War on May 18, 1948, as part of the second stage of Operation Barak. The village was located 32 km northeast of Gaza. It is one of three namesake villages, alongside Al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya and Al-Sawafir al-Shamaliyya.

Remains from the late Roman (third–fourth centuries CE), Byzantine (fifth–beginning of seventh centuries CE), and Abbasid eras have been found here.^[6] Columns and fragments were noted near the well.^[7]

12 century Crusader church endowments and land deeds mention Latin settlement in Zeophir/al-Sawāfīr. However, it is not clear which village of three Sawafirs these records pertain to.^[8]

Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya was like the rest of Palestine, incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596, the village appeared as Sawafir as-Sarqi under the administration of the nahiya of Gaza, part of the Liwa of Gaza. The place was noted as hali, that is empty, but taxes were paid on wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees and cotton; a total of 9,000 akçe.^[9]

In 1838 the three Sawafir villages were noted located in the Gaza district. The western village (=Al-Sawafir al-Gharbiyya) was noted as "in ruins or deserted", while the two others were noted as being Muslim.^[10][11]

In 1863 Victor Guérin found it to be the largest of the three Sawafir villages.^[12]

In 1882 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described it as one of three Suafir adobe villages. Each had small gardens and wells.^[13]

According to the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya had a population of 588 inhabitants, all Muslims,^[14] increasing in the 1931 census to an all-Muslim population of 787 in 148 houses.^[15]

In the 1945 statistics, it had a population of 970 Muslims,^[2] with a total of 13,831 dunams of land.^[3] Of this, 585 dunams were for citrus and bananas, 386 for plantations or irrigable land, 11,821 dunums were for cereals,^[16] while 40 dunams were classified as built-up, urban land.^[17]

The village shared a school with the other two Sawafir villages, and it had an enrollment of about 280 in 1945. The village had its own mosque.

In early May, 1948, the inhabitants of the three Al-Sawafir villages were ordered not to flee, by the Al-Majdal National Committee.^[18] At the 23 May, 1948, Israeli reports say that at all the three Al-Sawafir villages the inhabitants slept in the fields at night, but returned to work in the villages by day.^[19]

In 1992 the village site was described: "No houses remain on the site. New buildings stand on the spot where the Mosque used to be. Some traces of the former village are still present on the surrounding lands, however. There is a building for a water-pump in Isma'il al-Sawafiri's orchard, an old sycamore tree in the al-Buhaysi family's orchard, and an old cypress tree in an otherwise vacant field."^[5]

• Welcome To al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya
• al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya, Zochrot
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
• "My village was attacked and burned down": a Nakba survivor speaks, Electronic Intifada