Ijlil al-Shamaliyya

Ijlil al-Shamaliyya (Arabic: إجليل الشمالية Ijlīl aš-Šamāliyya) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jaffa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on April 3, 1948.

Ijlil al-Shamaliyya
Etymology: El Jelil, meaning "illustrious/grand" (Ar), or "a district/circuit"(He)[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Ijlil al-Shamaliyya (click the buttons)
Ijlil al-Shamaliyya is located in Mandatory Palestine
Ijlil al-Shamaliyya
Ijlil al-Shamaliyya
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 32°09′36″N 34°48′42″E
Palestine grid132/174
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictJaffa
Date of depopulationEnd of March- April 3, 1948[2]
Area
[3]
 • Total2,450 dunams (2.45 km2 or 610 acres)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total190[4][3]
Cause(s) of depopulationFear of being caught up in the fighting
Current LocalitiesGlil Yam[5]

Location

Ijlil al-Shamaliyya, (meaning "Northern Ijlil"), was located on a hilltop, 15 km (9 mi) northeast of Jaffa, and about 100 meters north of its sister village, Ijlil al-Qibliyya ("Southern Jilil").[5]

History

Ijlil was one of four villages founded in the 18th century, near the coast north of the Yarkon River (along with the villages of Al-Shaykh Muwannis, Al-Haram, and Umm Khalid). According to historian Roy Marom, the establishment of Ijlil "demonstrates that the expansion of settlement in the southern Sharon was the result of the internal expansion of the core settlement by residents of the mountainous highlands of Samaria, and not by Egyptian ‘penetrators’ as previously claimed."[6]

In June 1870, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited both villages. He described them as one unit called Edjlil, situated on a hill and divided into two districts. Together, they had 380 inhabitants. The houses were built of rammed earth or with different small aggregates mixed in with kneaded and dried silt.[7] In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed Ijlil in the nahiya (sub-district) of Bani Sa'b.[8]

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described the two villages, named El Jelil, as "a mud village, with a well to the south and a second to the north. [..] A small olive-grove exists to the south-east."[9]

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, the twin villages of Ijlil (spelled Jelil) had a population of 154, all Muslims,[10] increasing by the 1931 census to 305, still all Muslim.[11] In 1943 Glil Yam was founded on what was traditionally village land, to the east of the village site.[5]

Ijlil al-Shamaliyya 1942 1:20,000 (bottom left)
Ijlil al-Shamaliyya 1945 1:250,000

In the 1945 statistics the population of Ijlil al-Shamaliyya consisted of 190 Muslims[4] and the land area was 2,450 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[3] Of this land, 183 dunams were designated for citrus and bananas, 13 for plantations and irrigable land, 1,574 for cereals,[12] while seven dunams were built-up areas.[13] Also in 1945, a school was founded in the village and shared with Ijlil al-Qibliyya. It had 64 students in its first year. The village also had a mosque and several small shops.[5]

1948 war, and aftermath

In December 1947 and January 1948 the leaders of al-Shaykh Muwannis, al-Mas'udiyya, al-Jammasin al-Sharqi, al-Jammasin al-Gharbi, and the mukhtars of 'Arab Abu Kishk and the two Ijlil-villages met with Haganah representatives in Petah Tikva. These villages wanted peace, and promised not to harbor any Arab Liberation Army soldiers or local Arab militia. They further promised that, in the case they were not able to keep them out alone, they were to call on Haganah for help.[14]

By mid-March 1948, the Alexandroni Brigade had imposed isolation, dubbed "quarantine", of al-Shaykh Muwannis, 'Arab Abu Kishk and the two Ijlil-villages. However, on 12 March, the LHI kidnapped five village notables from al-Shaykh Muwannis.[15] This undermined the villagers' trust in former agreements, and many left. The people of the two Ijlil-villages also left, after asking Jewish neighbours to look after their property.[16]

In 1992, the historian Walid Khalidi found that the place was difficult to identify with precision as it was part of a large garbage dump.[5]

References
  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 214
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xviii, village #196. Also gives cause of depopulation
  3. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 52
  4. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 27
  5. Khalidi, 1992, p. 243
  6. Roy Marom, “Al-Sheikh Muwannis: Transformations in the Arab Countryside between the Mountainous Interior and the City of Jaffa, 1750-1848,” Cathedra 183 (February 2023), pp. 9-34.
  7. Guérin, 1875, p. 374
  8. Grossman, David (2004). Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. p. 255.
  9. Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 251
  10. Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jaffa, p. 20
  11. Mills, 1932, p. 13
  12. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 95
  13. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 145
  14. Morris, 2004, p. 91
  15. Morris, 2004, p. 127
  16. Morris, 2004, p. 128

Bibliography
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