Dayr Aban

In 1596, Dayr Aban appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds. It had a population of 23 Muslim households and 23 Christian households;[11] that is, an estimated 127 persons.[12] They paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, olives, and goats or beehives; a total of 9,700 Akçe.[11]

In 1838, Deir Aban was noted as a Muslim village, located in the el-Arkub District, south west of Jerusalem.[13]

Victor Guérin described it in 1863 as being a large village, and its adjacent valley "strewn with sesame."[14] An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that the village had a population of 443, in a total of 135 houses, though the population count included men, only.[15][16]

In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Dayr Aban as "a large village on the lower slope of a high ridge, with a well to the north, and olives on the east, west, and north. This place no doubt represents the fourth century site of Ebenezer (I Sam. IV. I) which is mentioned in the Onomasticon (s.v. Ebenezer) as near Beth Shemesh. The village is 2 miles east of 'Ain Shems."[10]

Baldensperger, writing in 1893, stated that the village's residents had been Greek Orthodox until they converted to Islam at a "very recent date [...] perhaps it was about the beginning of this century". He noted that the Christians of Beit Jala and the citizens of the village continue to share the same names, and added that the village's original Greek New Testament is still kept in the church in Beit Jala.[17][18] In another article, he mentioned that women in Dayr Aban have small crosses tattooed on their foreheads.[19] Yitzhak Ben-Zvi mentioned a local tradition according which elderly Muslim women at Dayr Aban preserved old miniature crosses.[20] H. Stephan wrote that persecutions brought Christians from Dayr Aban to seek refuge at Beit Jala and Ramallah, where they stayed in touch with family members that continued to live in the village as Muslims.[21][18]

In 1896, the population of Der Aban was estimated to be about 921 persons.[22]

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Dayr Aban had a population of 1,214 inhabitants, all Muslims,[23] increasing in the 1931 census to 1,534 inhabitants, in 321 houses.[24]

In the 1945 statistics, the village had a total population of 2,100 Arabs; 10 Christians and 2,090 Muslims,[3] with a total of 22,734 dunums of land.[4] Of this, Arabs used 1,580 dunams for irrigable land or plantations, 14,925 for cereals,[25] while 54 dunams were built-up (urban) Arab land.[26]

Dayr Aban had a mosque and a pipeline transporting water from 'Ayn Marjalayn, 5 km to the east.[5] The village contains three khirbats: Khirbat Jinna'ir, Khirbat Haraza, and Khirbat al-Suyyag.[5]

• 
  Dayr Aban (Deiraban), Mandate survey, 1:20,000
• 
  Dayr Aban (Deiraban), 1945, 1:20,000

On 4 August 1948, two weeks into the Second truce of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestinian nationalist Amin al Husseini noted that ‘for two weeks now . . . the Jews have continued with their attacks on the Arab villages and outposts in all areas. Stormy battles are continuing in the villages of Sataf, Deiraban, Beit Jimal, Ras Abu ‘Amr, ‘Aqqur, and ‘Artuf . . .’[6]

The village became depopulated on 19–20 October 1948, after a military assault during Operation Ha-Har.[2][7][27] Through the second half of 1948, the IDF, under Ben-Gurion’s tutelage, continued to destroy Arab villages, including Dayr Aban on 22 October 1948.[28]

After the war, the ruin of Dayr Abban remained under Israeli control under the terms of the 1949 Armistice Agreement[29] between Israel and Jordan, until such time that the agreement was dissolved in 1967.[30][31]

The moshav of Mahseya was later established near the site of the old village,[32] on the land of Dayr Aban, as was Tzora, Beit Shemesh and Yish'i.[5]

Houses being blown up by the Harel Brigade October 1948