Al-Ruways

al-Ruways
al-Ruways
Arabic	الرويس
Name meaning	"The little hilltop", or "Headland"
Also spelled	al-Ruweis
Subdistrict	Acre
Coordinates
Palestine grid	167/252
Population	330 (1945)
Area	1,163 dunams 1.2 km²
Date of depopulation	July 15-16, 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces

al-Ruways (Arabic: الرويس‎‎) was a Palestinian Arab village of 330 on a rocky hill located 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) southeast of Acre and south of al-Damun.

History

Al-Ruways stood on the site of the Crusader town, called Careblier, or Roeis. In 1220 Beatrix de Courtenay and her husband Otto von Botenlauben, Count of Henneberg, sold their land, including ‘’Roeis’’, to the Teutonic Knights. However, they appeared not to have sole ownership, as in 1253 John Aleman, Lord of Caesarea, sold several villages, including Al-Ruways, to the Hospitallers. In 1266, a Crusader vanguard returning from a raid in Tiberias to Acre was ambushed by Mamluk forces based in Safad in Careblier. In 1283 it was mentioned as part of the domain of the Crusaders in the hudna between the Crusaders based in Acre and the Mamluk sultan Qalawun.

Based on tradition, the people of the village professed to have blood relations with Husam ad-Din Abu al-Hija. Hussam ad-Din was a high-ranking officer in the Ayyubid army of Saladin.

Ottoman era

Victor Guérin visited in 1875, and noted that the village contained "150 people at most, whose homes are located on a hill, amid gardens filled with fig, pomegranate and olive trees, and here and there are palm trees."

In 1881, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Al-Ruways as being situated on open ground with olive groves to the north of the village. Its population of 400 was entirely Muslim.

British Mandate era

Under the British Mandate of Palestine in the early twentieth century, al-Ruways was one of the smallest villages in the District of Acre. In the 1922 census of Palestine Al Ruwais had a population of 154; all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 217, still all Muslims, in a total of 44 houses. and consisting of two quarters.

The village had a mosque, its children attended school in nearby al-Damun. The villagers drinking water came from domestic wells, and they primarily grew wheat, corn, sesame, watermelons, and olives. In 1945 the population of al-Ruways was 330, all Arabs, who owned 1,163 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 222 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 844 used for cereals, while 15 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

1948, and aftermath

On July 18, 1948, two days after Nazareth was occupied by Israel's Seventh Brigade in Operation Dekel, some units advanced into the Western Galilee and captured a number of Arab villages, one of which was al-Ruways. The inhabitants fled after bombardment and the fall of major neighboring towns (Shefa-'Amr and Nazareth). According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, "the site is deserted. The debris of old wells and cement roofs is strewn of over the site, which is otherwise covered by a forest of eucalyptus trees and cactus."

See also

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• Ein Hod

Bibliography

• (pp. 179-185, 224-235.)
• (p. 35)
• (p. 663)

External links

• al-Ruways Palestine Remembered
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 5: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• al-Ruways from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre
• Al-Rweis photos from Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh