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Before 1948 this southern Palestinian village was situated 30 km to
the north east of Gaza at the hub of roads leading to major
Palestinian cities including Hebron, Jerusalem and Jafa. Al Faluja
acquired paramount significance in Palestine’s 1948 war following
the siege of an Egyptian army Brigade there by Jewish forces. One of
the besieged Egyptian officers was Gamal Abdel Nasser, later the
leader of July 23, 1952 revolution and the future Egyptian
President.
During al Faluja-four-month-siege—which stretched from late October
to February 1948— Nasser found time to create the Free Officers’
Movement, which toppled, four years later, the corrupt regime of
King Farouq.
Al-Faluja’s
name became thereof a cause celebre in Egypt and the Arab World
after 1948 although the village itself was depopulated.
Both al-Falouja’s population and the Egyptian brigade were trapped
until February 1949 when the ‘ Faluja pocket’ was handed over to
Israel as a result of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice agreement. Some
3,140 Palestinian villagers were reported to be actually trapped in
the encampment. But no one of those Palestinians was allowed by the
invading Israelis to remain in al-Faluja.
During the relatively lengthy siege, the Palestinian residents of Faluja were keen to supply the trapped Egyptian troops with
provisions at their disposal. Many of them had the opportunity to be
acquainted with Nasser and some of his colleagues from the Free
Officers.
It
is reasonably enough to believe that the future Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had had at al-Falouja his first touch with the
1948 Catastrophe of Palestine.
Within days of the Egyptian forces’ departure, the Israeli invaders
dashed to the village and embarked on beating and robbing the
civilians. United Nations observers at the scene reported attempts
of rapes.
Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett personally reprimanded the Israeli
army’s chief of staff for the acts committed by the Israeli soldiers
against the population. He said that in addition to overt violence,
the army conducted
a “ whispering propaganda” campaign among the Arabs [of al-Faluja],
threatening
them with attacks and acts of vengeance by the army, which the
civilian authorities
will be powerless to prevent. There is no doubt that there is a
calculated
action aimed at increasing the number of those going to the
Hebron Hills as if of
their own free will, and if possible, to bring about the
evacuation of the whole
civilian population [of the pocket].
According to the Israeli historian BennyMorris the decision to cause
the exodus of the “ Faluja pocket” population was probably approved
by Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion.
The
Village Today
The foundations of the village mosque and fragments of its walls are
all that remain of al-Faluja.
The
Israeli town of Qiryat Gat was established in 1954 on the lands of
Iraq al-Manshiyaa between that village and al-Faluja; it has now
spread into the lands of al-Faluja as well. Four more settlements
were established two years later on village lands.
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