Balad ash-Sheikh

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Balad ash-Sheikh

Balad ash-Sheikh or Balad al-Shaykh is a former Palestinian town located just north of Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt....
, 7 kilometers southeast of Haifa

Haifa

Haifa is the largest city in North District Israel, and the List of Israeli cities in the country, with a population of over 264,900. Haifa has a mixed population of Jews and Arabs....
. The town is named after Sheikh Abdullah as-Sahli, a renowned Sufi and the town contains a maqam dedicated to him. Izz ad-Din al-Qassam

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam

Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam , full name,Izz al-Din ibn Abd al-Qadar ibn Mustapha ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassam, was an influential Sunni Islamic preacher in the British Mandate of Palestine....
's grave is located in Balad ash-Sheikh - which was vandalized in 1999.

The town had a total land area of 9,849 dunam

Dunam

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Balad ash-Sheikh or Balad al-Shaykh is a former Palestinian town located just north of Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel

Haifa

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam

Dunam

A dunam or d?n?m, dunum, donum is a Units of measurement of area used in the Ottoman Empire and still used, in various standardized versions, in many countries formerly part of the Ottoman Empire....
s although only 5,844 dunams were Arab-owned; Most of the remainder was public property. In 1945, the town had a population of 4,120 Arab inhabitants making it one of the larger localities in the area. Most of the fleeing or exiled residents of Balad ash-Sheikh are internally displaced Palestinians

Internally displaced Palestinians

Internally displaced Palestinians is a term used to refer to Palestinians and their descendants, who as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war became internally displaced refugees within what became the state of Israel....
and presently reside in various Arab neighborhoods in Haifa or to Acre

Acre, Israel

Acre also Akko, is a List of Israeli cities in the Western Galilee region of North District Israel. It is situated on a low promontory at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay....
. Currently the town's land is located within the jurisdiction of the Israeli city, Nesher

Nesher

Nesher is a city in the Haifa District in Israel. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2007 the city had a total population of 21,300....
.

Capture by Israelis

On December 31, 1947, Haganah troops entered the town disguised as Arabs and killed 14 residents, 10 of whom were women and children. The attack was in response to an attack by Arabs on the oil refinery in Haifa

Haifa Oil Refinery massacre

Haifa Oil Refinery massacre refers to an incident that took place on December 30, 1947. After operatives of the Zionism paramilitary, the Irgun, threw a number of grenades at a crowd of 100 Arab day labourers who had gathered outside the main gate of the United Kingdom-owned Haifa Oil refinery looking for work, 6 people were killed and 42 wou...
the previous night. According to Israeli historian Aryeh Yitzhaki

Aryeh Yitzhaki

Aryeh Yitzhaki is an Israeli military historian who has served as a lecturer at the Bar Ilan University Tel Aviv and as a senior lecturer in the field of military history in Israel Defense Forces courses for officers....
, the attack took place on January 30 when a coalition of Palmach

Palmach

The Palmach was the regular fighting force of the Haganah, the unofficial army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine....
and Haganah

Haganah

Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces....
forces entered the town and mostly fought in houses. Because of this most of the sixty residents that were killed were non-combatants. The town was captured by the Haganah

Haganah

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known by the Israelis predominantly as War of Independence and War of Liberation , and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the Declaration of Independence State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict....
on April 25, 1948, in the offensive, Operation Chametz.

Walid Khalidi

Walid Khalidi

Walid Khalidi is an Oxford University educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is also the General Secretary and co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies established in Beirut in December 1963 as an independent research and publishing center; focusing exclusively on the Palestinian pr...
- a prominent Palestinian historian, describes the town:

Many of the Arab houses and shops are still standing and are occupied by the settlement's inhabitants. The cemetery is visible and is in a state of neglect.

Balad ash-Sheikh

Capture by Israelis

See also