Umm Khalid (), also called Mukhalid, was a Palestinian village in the Tulkarm Subdistrict, west of Tulkarm. It was an ancient site in the central coastline of what is now the city of Netanya, Israel.

History

200px|left|thumb|Remains of the Crusader castle in Umm Khalid

Archaeological findings around the village included the remains of towers, fortresses, wells, reservoirs, cisterns, and pottery.

First century BCE remnants of buildings, installations and burial caves have been found. The building was mentioned in 1135, mostly destroyed c. 1948, and partly excavated in 1985/86. It appears to have been continuously in use from the Crusader period until 1948.]]

200px|right|thumb|Wilson's illustration is reproduced on ceramic floor tiles near the tree, now on [[Binyamin Mintz|Mintz Street in Netanya. According to historian Roy Marom, the establishment of Umm Khalid "demonstrates that the expansion of settlement in the southern Sharon was the result of the internal expansion of the core settlement by residents of the mountainous highlands of Samaria, and not by Egyptian ‘penetrators’ as previously claimed."

The village was named Omm Kaled on a 1799 map of the area, and the village was razed by the troops of Napoleon during their return to Egypt after their failed siege of Acre in 1799.

In the 19th century, Umm Khalid was a rest area between al-Tantura and Ras al-Ayn, where Ottoman officials stopped and received dignitaries. When Mary Rogers, the sister of the British vice-consul in Haifa, visited the Umm Khalid in 1856 she described it as a flourishing village, and noted the extensive watermelon gardens to the west of the village.

In 1863, Victor Guérin found the village to have about 300 inhabitants. In 1873, among the ruins were seen a vaulted building with remnants of a second story, a well built well, and six circular rock-cut granaries.

In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya (sub-district) of Wadi al-Sha'ir.

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village as "A small mud village, with ruins, and a sacred place to the south. On the east is a good masonry well, with troughs and a wheel for raising the water. ... There are also cisterns, and a pond with mud banks. There are cornfields to the east, but the soil is very sandy. The place is famous for its water melons, which are shipped at the little harbour called Minet Abu Zabura."

British Mandate period

In the 1922 census of Palestine there were 307 villagers, all Muslim, increasing in the 1931 census to 586; 580 Muslims and 6 Christians, in a total of 131 houses.

At the village center was a mosque, an elementary school for boys, and four shops for groceries and fabrics. In the 1944/45 statistics, Um Khalid had 970 inhabitants; 960 Muslims and 10 Christians, At the same time, it was registered that 2,894 dunums of land was Arab owned, 882 Jewish owned, while 89 dunam was public property.

The American historian Rosemarie Esber interviewed refugees from Umm Khalid. According to Ahamed 'Uthman, Zionist surrounded and blockaded the village in 1947, and continued into 1948:

Much of the village land has been engulfed by the suburbs of the city of Netanya, founded in 1929 one kilometer to the west. The settlement of Gan Chefer, founded in 1940, and Nira, founded in 1941, were merged in 1953 to form a single, large settlement named Sha'ar Hefer; this settlement covers part of the village land.

See also

  • Mahmoud Hamshari

References

Bibliography

  • Palestine Remembered – Umm-Khalid
  • Umm Khalid, Zochrot
  • Survey of Western Palestine, Map 10: IAA, Wikimedia commons
  • Umm Khalid from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center