Al-'Abbasiyya
Introduction '''Al-'Abbasiyya''' (), also known as '''al-Yahudiya''' (), was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jaffa Subdistrict. It was attacked under Operation Hametz during the 1948 Palestine War, and finally depopulated under Operation Dani. It was located 13 km east of Jaffa. Some of the remains of the village can be found today in the centre of the modern Israeli city of Yehud.
History In 1596, ''Yahudiya'' appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the ''Nahiya'' of Ramla of the ''Liwa'' of Gaza. It had a population of 126 Muslim households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops or fruit trees, sesame, and goats or beehives.In 1838 it was noted as a  Muslim   village called ''el-Yehudiyeh'' in the  Lydda administrative region.The French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village, which he called ''Yehoudieh'', in 1863, and found it to have a population of more than 1,000 people. The houses were made of adobe bricks, several topped by palm leaves. Near a noria he noticed an ancient sarcophagus, placed there as a trough.An  Ottoman  village list from about  1870  found that  ''el-jehudie'' had  a population of 835, in  246  houses, though the population count included men, only.In 1882, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described the place as "a large mud village, supplied by a pond, and surrounded by palm-trees." They also noted a ruined tank, or birkeh, to the south of the village.===British Mandate era===In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Yahudiyeh'' had a population of 2,437 residents, all Muslims,  increasing in the  1931 census, when ''Yahudiya''  had a population of 3,258 residents; 3,253 Muslims and 5 Christians, in a total of 772 houses.The previous name, ''Al-Yahudiya'', is thought to be taken from the name of the biblical town of Yahud, mentioned in  (as part of a list of towns comprising the territory of the Israelite tribe of Dan), and later called ''Iudaea'' by the Romans. In 1932, the town was officially renamed Al-'Abbasiyya, because the inhabitants did not want the town to be associated with Jews. The name chosen as a replacement, Al-'Abbasiyya, was mostly in honour of the memory of a sheikh called al-'Abbas who was buried in the town, but also alluded to the Arab Muslim Abbasid Caliphate.In the 1945 statistics, the population had increased to 5,800; 5,630 Muslims, 150 Jews, and 20 Christians, with a total of 20,540 dunums  of land. Of this, a total of 4,099 dunums was used for citrus and bananas,  1,019 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, 14,465 were for cereals,   while 101 dunams were classified as built-up areas.On December 13, 1947, twenty-four armed men from the hard-right paramilitary organization Irgun attacked the village, approaching from the Jewish town of Petaḥ Tiqvah. The attackers wore khaki uniforms and drove through the village in four cars. One group fired on villagers at a cafe and another set bombs and grenades in houses. Seven Arabs were killed (two women and two children under the age of five) and seven others seriously wounded (two women and a four-year-old girl among them). An armored British police vehicle was fired upon by the attackers.===1948 and after===On September 13, 1948, David Ben-Gurion requested the destruction of Al-'Abbasiyya, among other Palestinian villages whose inhabitants fled or were expelled.Between 1948 and 1954  the Israeli sites of Yehud, Magshimim, Ganne Yehuda, Ganne Tiqwa, and Savyon were established on the land of Al-'Abbasiyya.In 1992 the village site was described:
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External links * Welcome To al-'Abbasiyya*  al-'Abbasiyya (Yahudiyya), Zochrot*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 13:  IAA,   Wikimedia commons* Al-'Abbasiyya at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center