Al-Damun

Al-Damun
Al-Damun
Arabic	الدامون
Also spelled	Damun
Subdistrict	Acre
Coordinates
Palestine grid	167/254
Population	1,310 (1945)
Area	20,357 dunams 20.4 km²
Date of depopulation	15–16 July 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Yas'ur

Al-Damun (Arabic: الدامون‎‎, Dâmûn) was a Palestinian Arab village located 11.5 kilometres (7.1 mi) from the city of Acre that was depopulated during 1948 Arab-Israeli war. In 1945, the village had 1,310 inhabitants, most of whom were Muslim, while the remainder were Christians. The village bordered the al-Na'amin River, which it used as a source of irrigation and drinking water from installed wells.

History

Excavations at the site has shown pot sherds dating from the Late Bronze Age, up to and including Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman times.

Al-Damun is mentioned in early Arab and Persian sources since the 11th century CE. Local tradition identified the village as containing the tomb of the prophet Dhul-Kifl, who is mentioned in the Qur'an twice. Despite Islamic tradition claiming the tomb to be in Al Kifl near Najaf or Kifl Hares near Nablus, Nasir Khusraw believed it to be al-Damun when he visited the region in 1047. He writes "I reached a small cave, which is in Damun where I performed the ziyarat too, for it is said to be the tomb of Dhul-Kifl, peace be upon him."

Al-Damun was captured by the Crusaders, who referred to it as "Damar" or "Damor" during their invasion of Levant in 1099, and it remained in their hands unlike most of Palestine which was conquered by the Ayyubids under Saladin in 1187. In the 1253 John Aleman, Lord of Caesarea sold several villages, including Al-Damun, to the Hospitallers. It was mentioned as part of the Crusaders' domain in the ceasefire between the Crusaders based in Acre and the Mamluks under Qalawun in 1283.

Ottoman era

Al-Damun, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596 the village was located in the Nahiya of Acca of the Liwa of Safad. The population was 33 households and 2 bachelors, all Muslim. They paid taxes on wheat, barley, fruit trees, cotton, occasional revenues, goats and beehives.

Until the late eighteenth century the village was ruled by the Arab Zaydani family, which rose to prominence in the Galilee through the campaigns of Zahir al-Umar. They traced their lineage to the al-Zaydaniyya tribe who had emigrated to Palestine from the Hejaz. The village mosque was built by a resident of al-Damun, Ali bin Salih, who was also Zahir's uncle, in 1722-23. Inscriptions on the mosque entailed the genealogy of the Zaydani family and included a poem dedicated bin Salih.

A map by Pierre Jacotin from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 showed the place, named as Damoun.

In 1875, al-Damun was prosperous and had roughly 800, mostly Muslim inhabitants and two mosques. In addition to the possible tomb of Dhul-Kifl, there was a shrine dedicated to Sheikh Abdallah on an adjacent hill. An elementary school for boys was founded by the Ottomans in 1886.

British mandate era

At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine Al-Damun had a population of 727, 687 Muslims and 40 Christians, where all the Christians were Roman Catholic. The population increased in the 1931 census to 917; 870 Muslims and 47 Christians, in a total of 183 houses.

At the beginning of the 20th century, al-Damun's houses were clustered along one road and starting in 1935, the residents started to build them with reinforced concrete. The inhabitants drew their drinking water from nearby springs and irrigated some of their crops from the Na'amin River. They also engaged in allied activities, particularly plaiting mats and baskets from esparto grass. The chief crops of al-Damun were wheat, sorghum, barley, and olives, but it was also well known for its watermelons and cantaloupes.

In 1945 the population of Ed Damun was 1,310, 1,240 Muslims and 70 Christians, and the village had 20,357 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 709 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 17,052 used for cereals, while 111 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

1948, and aftermath

Prior to the war the Haganah kept files on all the Palestinian villages. The 1947 entry for Al-Damun listed 25 individuals suspected of involvement with the Palestinian nationalist movement.

In April 1948, Haganah reports say that the son of the main local land-owner, Sadiq Karaman, paid the local ALA garrison P£ 5000 to leave, presumably in an attempt to keep the village from getting involved with the hostilities in the 1948 Palestine war.

After the initial Israeli successes in the central Galilee during the first stage of Operation Dekel, units of the Haganah's Sheva Brigade moved westward and captured al-Damun, among other Arab localities, in the second stage of the operation on July 15–16, 1948. However, Palestinian historian, Aref al-Aref, dates its capture earlier in May 1948, following the fall of Acre. Israeli historian, Benny Morris, reports that inhabitants were demoralized by the fall of Acre and then Nazareth, and so fled during the bombardment that preceded the attack on the village. The remaining residents were expelled and al-Damun itself was completely destroyed according to both historians.

According to Walid Khalidi, in 1992, the site was "overgrown with thorns, cacti, olive trees, and pines. Stone and concrete rubble is scattered around it. The structure that formerly protected the central water source and regulated its flow stands untended and is collapsing in several places. The cemetery is extant, although the markers over a few graves are collapsing."

Petersen writes that the village had a number of eighteenth or nineteenth-century stone houses, some which had decorated facades.

See also

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

Bibliography

• p.89

External links

• Welcome to al-Damun, palestineremembered.com
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 5: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Al-Damun, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
• Al-Damun, Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh
• Remembering al-Damun, Zochrot
• Tour to the village of al-Damun, Saturday, 15.8.09, By Umar Ighbariyyeh, Zochrot