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Village files were military intelligence documents based on a card index system, with detailed data on every Arab village in Mandatory Palestine. Gathered by the SHAI, they were the basis of Haganah and Palmah operations during the 1940s.Ian Black and Benny Morris, , 2004, p.129, The files answered the need of combat intelligence for the number of men in the village, the number of weapons, the topography and so on, dealt with the research of traces of ancient Jews in the villages, and with the possibility of buying land from the villagers and settling it.
According to Ilan Pappé, in the early 1940s, topographers, (aerial) photographers and Orientalists worked on the files. Moshe Pasternak, who joined a data collection operation in 1940 said:
According to Gil Eyal, the information was rather gathered between 1945 and 1947 when between 600 and 1000 villages were "surveyed by scouts and informers as well as aerial reconnaissance".
According to Pappé in the late 1940s these files contained 'precise details ... about the topographic location of each village, its access roads, quality of land, water springs, main sources of income, its sociopolitical composition, religious affiliations, names of its , its relationship with other villages, the age of individual men (sixteen to fifty),' an index of hostility based on the level of the village's participation in the revolt of 1936, and a list of everyone who had been involved in the revolt with particular attention for those who had allegedly killed Jews.
According to EyalGil Eyal, The Disenchantment of the Orient - Expertise in Arab Affairs and the Israeli State, Stanford University Press, 2006, p.85. . the 'village files' gathered three types of information:
Eyal emphasizes that "the bulk of information in the files reflected the needs and point of view of the emerging Arabist expertise. (...) The Arabists could use this information to interpret the events in the village, but more importantly they could use it to act against the village and use this when needed". He points out it was used after 1948, e.g. during retaliation operations, but doesn't make any reference to a use during the 1948 Palestine War.
Eyal refers to the use of the 'village files' by Israeli military governors after the 1948 War. According to him, they used them in the areas conquered by Israel in order to control the mukhtars and the Arab villagers.Gil Eyal, The Disenchantment of the Orient - Expertise in Arab Affairs and the Israeli State, Stanford University Press, 2006, p.158. .
According to Ian Black and Benny Morris the 'village files' were also used in the 1950s by Aman, Israel's military intelligence service, as the basis of their "intelligence on potential targets in the West Bank and the Gaza strip.". Eyal also refers to this use.Gil Eyal, The Disenchantment of the Orient - Expertise in Arab Affairs and the Israeli State, Stanford University Press, 2006, p.110. .
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