Bi’lin

The village was located on a limestone hill in a mountainous area, 39 kilometers from Gaza and at an average elevation of 150 meters above sea level, its population in 1945 was 180 people distributed over 23 houses built of brick and stone. The village was relatively isolated due to the absence of roads, and agriculture was the main activity of the residents, who grew grains and fruits such as grapes and figs.

Occupying the village and ethnically cleansing it

Bi’lin was one of sixteen villages that were occupied during Operation An-Far, which was an attack launched during the ten days separating the two armistices (July 8-18, 1948) on the southern front. The goal of the operation was to expand the Givati Brigade’s area of ​​deployment and control eastward and southward. The forces were repelled in the direction of the Negev, but they succeeded in expelling the residents from about sixteen villages located at the intersection of the Gaza, Hebron, and Ramla districts. Although the attack failed to achieve the goal of connecting the occupied coast with the Jewish colonies in the Negev, the operation An-Far succeeded in cleansing the area south of Ramla, between the coast and the Hebron Hills, of more than twenty thousand citizens.

The orders issued to the first battalion of the Givati Brigade included the expulsion of civilians from the occupied area. Still, the brigade’s sources later claimed that the residents of the area fled from it before the advancing units reached their villages. The book (History of the War of Independence) mentions that the village of Tal Turmus (Gaza District) was occupied during one of (several cleansing operations that took place in the rear of the brigade to remove the threat and danger posed by the presence of Arab residential communities in the rear of the front). Israeli historian Benny Morris cites the commander of the Givati Shimon Brigade. Avidan, who ordered the First Battalion (to expel the refugees camped (in Tel al-Safi, Hebron district) to prevent the enemy’s infiltration from the east towards this important site), but Morris insists that no expulsions took place and that the residents of the villages fled on their own when the Israeli units advanced. The residents who were in the Al-Masmiya Al-Kabira area (Gaza District) were expelled through an area occupied by Israel. The rest fled east towards Hebron.

Bi’lin likely fell in the first phase of the attack, on July 9-10, 1948, at the hands of the First Battalion of the Brigade.

The village today

All that remains are the ruins of some houses. The site is covered with wild grasses and thorns, some trees and cactus plants, and the site is fenced with barbed wire. As for the neighboring lands, mango and grape trees have been planted in some of them, while others are used as pasture for livestock.

Zionist colonies on village lands

No Israeli colonies on village lands. However, residents of Kadma Colony (128123), which was established to the northwest of the village in 1946, use some of the village land.

Walid Khalidi, All That Remains, pp 90-91