part of the Sanjak of Quds. It had a population of 47 Muslim households (an estimated 259 persons) and paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on wheat, barley, olives, beehives, and goats; a total of 11,000 akçe. All of the revenue went to a waqf. A Maqam (shrine) in the village dedicated to the prophet Zechariah was noticed by Edward Robinson in 1838, while van de Velde, recorded its name as Kefr Zakaria in the 1850s. In 1863 Victor Guérin found the place to have five hundred inhabitants, while an Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that Az-Zakariyya had 41 houses and a population of 128, though the population count included men only. In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Zakariyya as sitting on a slope above a broad valley surrounded by olive groves. In 1896 the population of (Tell) Zakarja was estimated to be about 636 persons. British Mandate era In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Zakaria had a population of 683, all Muslim, increasing in the 1931 census to 742, still all Muslims, in 189 occupied houses. In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,180, all Muslims, with a total of 15,320 dunams of land. In 1944/45 a total of 6,523 dunums of village land was allocated to cereals, 961 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 440 dunums were planted with olive trees, while 70 dunams were built-up (urban) areas. In the 1946 Tax Form of Mandatory Palestine, there were 357 "assessable inhabitants" living in Zakariyya, of which 232 were landowners. 1948 and aftermath The village was located inside the territory allotted to a future Arab state in the UN's 1947 partition plan. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Az-Zakariyya was the longest lasting Arab community in the southern Jerusalem Corridor. The village was captured in October 1948 during Operation Ha-Har, when the Israeli military used artillery to shell Az-Zakariyya and stormed the village at night. In the course of Operation Yoav, the 54th Battalion of the Givati Brigade, found the village "almost empty", as most of the residents had temporarily fled to the nearby hills. Two residents were executed by Israeli soldiers. Many of the villagers returned to their homes after the cessation of hostilities. In December 1948 the army evicted about 40 "old men and women" to the West Bank. In March 1949 the