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Yalo (, also transliterated Yalu) is a depopulated Palestinian Arab village located 13 kilometres southeast of Ramla. Identified by Edward Robinson as the ancient and Israelites city of Aijalon.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, pp. 80-81 During the Middle Ages, it was the site of a Crusader castle, Castrum Arnaldi.
Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan annexed the West Bank, including the village of Yalo. Yalo's population increased dramatically owing to an influx of Palestinian refugees from neighbouring towns and villages depopulated during the war.
During the Six-day war, IDF Ethnic cleansingMundinger, Ulla. "Walking on Ruins: The Untold Story of Yalu." Jerusalem Quarterly 69 (2017): 22.Davis, U. (2004). APARTHEID ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND OF CANADA.Petersen, Kim. "Canada: The Honest Broker?."Kanj, Jamal Krayem. Children of catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian refugee camp to America. Garnet Publishing Ltd, 2010. Yalo and the village structures were Naksa. Yalo and the area surrounding Latrun were unilaterally annexed by Israel. Subsequently, with donations from benefactors from the Canadian Jewish community, the Jewish National Fund built a recreational space, Canada Park, which contains the former sites of Yalo and two other neighbouring villages, Dayr Ayyub and Imwas. Palestine Remembered
It is mentioned in Eusebius' Onomasticon (30:27) as Alus ().
During his travels in Palestine in 1838, American Biblical scholar Edward Robinson studied Yalo, associating it with Aijalon, an ancient village mentioned in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Robinson relied upon the works of Jerome and Eusebius, who describe Aijalon as two Roman miles from Emmaus Nicopolis; the biblical descriptions of the village; and the philological similarities between the present-day Arabic name and its Canaanite root.
In Later Biblical Researches in Palestine and Adjacent Regions (1856), Edward Robinson and Eli Smith situate Yalo between two ravines, overlooking "the beautiful meadow-like tract of Merj Ibn 'Omeir." They note that a fountain from the western ravine served as a water source for the village, that the place has "an old appearance", and that on the cliff beyond the eastern ravine lay a series of large caverns. In these first-hand descriptions garnered from their regional travels, they wrote,
Victor Guérin visited in 1863,Guérin, 1868, pp. 290-293 while an Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Jalo had a population of 250, in 67 houses, though the population count included men, only.Socin, 1879, p. 155Hartmann, 1883, p. 118, also noted 67 houses
In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Yalo as "a small village on the slope of a low spur, with an open valley or small plain to the north. There is a spring to the east, where a branch valley runs down north, and on the east side of this valley are caves. The village stands 250 feet above the northern basin."Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 19
In the 1945 statistics the population of Yalo was 1,220 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 30 having a total of 14,992 of land, according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 68 Of this, 447 dunams of land was for plantations and irrigable land; 6,047 for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 117 while 74 dunams were built-up land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 167
On 2 November 1950 Palestinian children were targeted by the IDF when three of them were shot, two fatally, by IDF troops near Dayr Ayyub in the Latrun salient. Ali Muhammad Ali Alyyan (12), his sister Fakhriyeh Muhammad Ali Alyyan (10), and their cousin Khadijeh Abd al Fattah Muhammad Ali (8) were all from Yalo village. Morris wrote, "The two children Ali stood in a wadi bed and a soldier opened fire at them. According to both adult witnesses only one man fired at them with a Sten but none of the detachment attempted to interfere".Morris, 1993, p. 181
In 1961, the population was 1,644 persons.Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 24 It was further noted (note 2) that it was governed by a mukhtar.
Tom Segev and Jessica Cohen write that, in 1967, Yalo was one of three populated villages in the Latrun area where Israeli armed forces told residents to leave their homes and gather in an open area outside the villages, after which they were ordered over loudspeakers to march to Ramallah. Segev and Cohen estimate that about 8,000 people left as a result of that order. They also write that, "In the general order distributed to Central Command soldiers, Imwas and Yalu were associated with the failure to take the area in 1948 and were described as 'terms of disappointment, terms of a long and painful account, which has now been settled to the last cent.'"Segev, 2007, p. 407
Amos Kenan, an Israeli soldier present during the operation, later gave a firsthand account of what happened to Yalo and its neighbouring villages. He said that, "The unit commander told us that it had been decided to blow up three villages in our sector; they were Beit Nuba, Imwas and Yalu ... In the houses we found one wounded Egyptian commando officer, and some very old people. At noon the first bulldozers arrived ..." The IDF used bulldozers and explosives to destroy 539 houses in Yalo.Karmi, 1999, p. 87 In The Case for Palestine, John B. Quigley writes that, "The IDF blew up entire villages of Emmaus, Yalu, and Beit Nuba—near Jerusalem—and drove the villagers toward Jordan."Quigley, 2005, p. 168
Meron Benvenisti explains that a week after their expulsion on June 7, 1967, thousands of refugees from the three villages tried to return home but "encountered army roadblocks that had been put up near the villages. From there they watched as bulldozers demolished their homes and the stones from the ruins were loaded on trucks belonging to Israeli contractors, who had bought them to use in building houses for Jews. The village sites, with their verdant orchards, were turned into a large picnic area and given the name Canada Park."Benvenisti, 2000, p. 327
On June 21, 1967, Knesset member Tawfik Toubi requested that Defense Minister Moshe Dayan allow Yalo inhabitants to return to their village, but his request was denied. Michael Oren writes that the Arab villagers were offered compensation by Israel, but were not allowed to return.Oren, 2002, p. 307 Since then, the village's evicted residents have campaigned for their return to and reconstruction of Yalo.
Residents of Yalu were originally from several places, including Yatta, Halhul, Beit Jala, and Bayt Mahsir, as well as Egypt.Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 365
"The village belongs to the family of the Sheikhs Abu Ghaush, who reside at Abu Ghosh. One of the younger of them was now here, and paid us a visit in our tent. The people of Yâlo were well disposed, and treated us respectfully."Robinson and Smith, 1856, p. 144
British Mandate
According to the British Mandate's 1922 census of Palestine, Yalu had 811 inhabitants, all Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p. 15 increasing in the 1931 census to 963, still all Muslims, living in a total of 245 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 44
1948 war
In the lead-up to the outbreak of 1948 Arab-Israeli war, on the night of 27 December 1947, the Etzioni Brigade of the Hagana blew up three houses in Yalo. This action formed part of a series what Israeli historian Benny Morris has described as "Haganah retaliatory strikes", the operational orders of which "almost invariably contained an order to blow up one or several houses (as well as to kill 'adult males' or 'armed irregulars')."Morris, 2004, p. 343
Jordanian period
After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Yalo was under rule from 1948 until 1967.
1967 war
officials state that Yalo, Imwas and Beit Nuba were destroyed in the course of fighting that took place during the Six-Day War. In June 1968, the Israeli embassy in Britain said that "these villages suffered heavy damage during the June war and its immediate aftermath, when our troops engaged two Egyptian Army commando units which had established themselves there and continued fighting after the war."
Post-2003 development
Since 2003, the Israeli NGO Zochrot ('Remember' in Hebrew) has lobbied the Jewish National Fund for permission to post signs designating the sites of the former Palestinian villages in Canada Park. Out of sight maybe, but not out of mind , by Zafrir Rinat, 13 June 2007 Haaretz After petitioning the Israeli High Court,, Zochrot permission was granted. However, subsequently the signs have been stolen or vandalized.
Artistic representations
Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour made Yalo the subject of one of his paintings. The work, named for the village, was one of a series of four on destroyed Palestinian villages that he produced in 1988; the others being Bayt Dajan, Imwas and Yibna.Ankori, 2006, p. 82
Demographics
In 1922, at the beginning of British Mandate rule in Palestine, Yalo's population was 811. In 1931 the village's population increased to 963 people, according to a census by British Mandatory authorities. In Sami Hadawi's 1945 land and population survey, its population was 1,220 Arabs.
See also
Bibliography
(1977). 9783920405414, Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. . ISBN 9783920405414
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