Ijzim

Ijzim (Arabic: إجزم‎) was a Palestinian village located in the Haifa Subdistrict of British Mandate Palestine, 19.5 kilometers south of the city, that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Many of its Arab inhabitants ended up as refugees in Jenin after a group of Israeli special forces composed of members of the Golani, Carmeli and Alexandroni Brigades attacked the village in Operation Shoter on 24 July 1948.

Families from Ijzim include the Madis, the Nabhanis and the Alhassans with the majority of the families derived from the Bani Nabhan tribe. Collectively, they owned over 40,000 dunams (40 km²) of land and were considered one of the richest villages in Palestine.

History

The French explorer Victor Guérin visited in 1870 and found "an ancient marble column at the door of a mosque; in the valley below the village a large square well, built with regular stones and surmounted by a vaulted construction. Near the well a birket, no longer used, and partly filled up, and close at hand the foundations of an ancient tower, measuring 15 paces by 10, and built with large masonry." In 1873, SWP surveyed three ancient rock-cut tombs north of the village.