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.

Bibliography:

 –All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 by Prof. Walid Khalidi

http://www.palestineremembered.com