Al-Khalasa

al-Khalasa الخلصة al-Khalasah, al-Khalus, Elusa
The well at al-Khalasa
al-Khalasa
Coordinates: 31°5′50″N 34°39′9″E / 31.09722°N 34.65250°E / 31.09722; 34.65250
Palestine grid	116/056
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Beersheba
Date of depopulation	October 1948
Population  (1945)
• Total	Not known; populated by nomads
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces

Al-Khalasa (Arabic: الخلصة, romanized: al-Khalasah; Hebrew: אל-ח'אלצה, al-Khalatsah), was a Palestinian village, located 23 kilometers southwest of the town of Beersheba. The village stood at the site of an ancient town from the Nabatean, Roman, Byzantine, and the beginning of the Early Muslim period. The ancient city, founded by the Nabateans, is known from Greek and Roman sources as "Halasa" or "Chellous", and later as "Elusa", one of the Byzantine administrative centers in the Negev Desert. Still important in the century of the Muslim conquest, it was deserted not long after.^[1] The site was repopulated by Bedouin in the early twentieth century, after western archaeologists took an interest in it. In October 1948, it was captured by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The population of al-Khalasa is unknown, but all of the inhabitants were Muslims, from the al-Azizma tribe.