Ma'alul

Ma'alul
معلول
Ma'lul, Maalul, Maaloul, Mahlul
A restored Catholic Church of Ma'alul in July 2010
A restored Catholic Church of Ma'alul in July 2010
Etymology: from personal name[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Ma'alul (click the buttons)
Ma'alul is located in Mandatory Palestine
Ma'alul
Ma'alul
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 32°41′44″N 35°14′22″E / 32.69556°N 35.23944°E / 32.69556; 35.23944
Palestine grid172/233
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictNazareth
Date of depopulation15 July 1948[4]
Area
[3]
 • Total4,698 dunams (4.698 km2 or 1.814 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total690[2][3]
Cause(s) of depopulationMilitary assault by Yishuv forces
Current LocalitiesMigdal HaEmek, Kfar HaHoresh, Timrat,[5][6] and an Israeli military base

Ma'alul (Arabic: معلول) was a Palestinian village, with a mixed population of primarily Muslims with a substantial minority of Palestinian Christians, that was depopulated and destroyed by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Located six kilometers west of the city of Nazareth,[7] many of its inhabitants became internally displaced refugees, after taking refuge in Nazareth[8] and the neighbouring town of Yafa an-Naseriyye.[9] Despite having never left the territory that came to form part of Israel, the majority of the villagers of Maalul, and other Palestinian villages like Andor and Al-Mujidal, were declared "absentees", allowing the confiscation of their land under the Absentees Property Law.[10]

Today, much of the former village's lands are owned by the Jewish National Fund.[11] All that remains of its former structures are two churches, a mosque and a Roman-era mausoleum, known locally as Qasr al-Dayr ("Castle of the monastery").[7]

  1. ^ Palmer, 1881, p. 113
  2. ^ Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 8
  3. ^ a b Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 62
  4. ^ Morris, 2004, p. xvii, village #138. Also gives cause of depopulation.
  5. ^ Morris, 2004, p. xx, settlement #12.
  6. ^ Khalidi, 1992, p. 347
  7. ^ a b Ma'lul, Palestine Remembered, retrieved 2008-03-31
  8. ^ Rabinowitz, 1997, p. 27
  9. ^ Nihad Bokae'e (February 2003), Palestinian Internally Displaced Persons inside Israel:Challenging the Solid Structures (PDF), Badil, archived from the original (PDF) on June 14, 2007
  10. ^ H. Draper (Winter 1957), "Israel's Arab Minority:The Great Land Robbery", New International, XXIII (1): 7–30, retrieved 2008-03-31
  11. ^ Merrilee Langenbrunner (December 1, 2002), Mourning the departure of Arab Christians, Catholic New Times, retrieved 2008-03-31