Destroyed Palestinian Villages:
A Reign of Terror & Systematic Expulsion

Abu Shusha

Abu Shusha was situated on the south slope of Tall Jazar where the coastal plain meets the Jerusalem foothills (approx. location at on map), and was linked by a secondary road to the Jaffa-Jerusalem highway to the northeast. Tall Jazar has been identified with Old Testament city of Gezer, but settlement may date back as early as the fourth millennium BC. Excavations conducted in Abu Shusha in the early 1900s turned up artifacts that date back to the third millennium B.C. (the early Bronze Age). Prior to Roman times, it was documented that the city was controlled by the Canaanites (who built a wall around it), Egypt (it was mentioned as one of the cities Thutmose III conquered, circa 1469 B.C.), and the first Jewish kingdom (Solomon is believed to have turned it into a major stronghold). Though there is less definitive evidence, the city most likely followed the history of the entire region which was conquered successively by the Assyrians (Nebuchadnezzar), the Persians (Cyrus), the Greeks (Alexander), Egypt (Ptolemy), and the Seleucids. A successful Jewish revolt in the second century B.C. against the Seleucids created a second independent Jewish Kingdom, which was then conquered by the Romans.

In Roman times the site was called Gazara, and lay within the administrative jurisdiction of Nicopolis (In modern times, the Palestinian village of 'Imwas was located at the historical site of Nicopolis. 'Imwas was destroyed in 1967 along with two neighboring villages--Bayt Nuba and Yaiu--soon after Israel captured of the West Bank.)

It is unclear whether settlement continued on Tall Jazar throughout or beyond Roman times. Little is know about the site during the Islamic period. In AD 1177 the site, called Mont Gisart by the Crusaders, was the location of a battle where the Crusaders defeated the troops of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin). No evidence has yet been found in Ottoman archives mentioning settlement at the site. Some artifacts found on the site (ceramics and coins) date to the thirteenth century AD, indicating that it may have been inhabited at that time. There is also evidence of construction in the following centuries--a shrine (maqam) on Tall Jazar seems to have been built in the sixteenth century.

By 1800, however, the village of Abu Shusha must have existed, since Elihu Grant--who traveled in the region in the latter half of the 19th century--reported visiting the village.

In modern times the entire population of the village was Muslim, and the villagers built their mud and stone houses closely together. Abu Shusha had a mosque, a number of shops, and an elementary school founded in 1947 (initial enrollment of thirty-three children). In 1944/45 a total of 2,475 dunums were allocated to cereals, and 54 for orchards.

Abu Shusha was first attacked in the early months of the war in what the Haganah called "the model of a studied retaliatory operation." According to the account given by The History of the Haganah, the hit-and-run attack was in retaliation for the death of a guard from the nearby settlement of Gezer, killed while trespassing on fields owned by Abu Shusha villages. After midnight on 1 April 1948, two platoons of the Giv'ati Brigade's Second Battalion, accompanied by other forces, infiltrated into the village, and demolition experts blew up a house and a well. Reinforcements for the Arab militia arrived from the adjacent villages of al-Qubab and clashed with a Haganah support unit covering the attackers. One of the Jewish attackers was fatally wounded, but The History of the Haganah makes no mention of Arab casualties among the villagers or local militiamen.

The village fell during Operation Barak on 14 May 1948 (the date British forces withdrew from Palestine), at the hands of Giv'ati Brigade, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris (The History of the Haganah places the occupation on 15 May). Morris states that the attacking units shelled Abu Shusha with mortars the night before it fell, on 13 May. The residents fled and some of the village houses were dynamited. The destruction of the village was also coordinated with an offensive progress to the east, aimed at occupying the strategic village of al-Latrun. With the capture of Abu Shusha, Israeli forces participating in Operation Makkabi gained a stronger foothold in the area.