All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948
Walid Khalidi (ed.)
A monumental village-by-village record of the more than four hundred Palestinian communities depopulated in 1948 — the definitive documentary reference on the Nakba.
All That Remains is an encyclopedia of erasure. A team of field researchers under Walid Khalidi’s direction documented 418 Palestinian villages depopulated during the Nakba of 1948, recording for each its location, population, land holdings, and fate — what was destroyed, what was built over it, and what physically remains: a shrine, a schoolhouse, a row of cacti marking where a village stood.
The book’s power lies in its methodical accumulation. Refusing rhetoric, it lets the record speak: page after page of communities that existed, with names, mosques, and harvests, and then did not. It is the standard scholarly reference on the destroyed villages and a cornerstone of the Palestinian documentary memory.
About the author
Walid Khalidi, born in Jerusalem in 1925, is a historian and a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, long the editor of its Journal of Palestine Studies. A professor emeritus of Harvard University, he has spent a lifetime assembling the documentary record of modern Palestinian history.
Details
- Published by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, D.C., 1992
- Documents 418 villages, with photographs and maps
Connected in the archive
53 connected records53 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
names this record — 13 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- The Record of 1948
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: The definitive record: Walid Khalidi's village-by-village documentation.
- al-Jammasin al-Gharbiالجَمّاسِين الغربي
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: However, the All That Remains narrative reproduced lower on that same page, and also reproduced by PalQuest, says only that Zionist troops probably took al-Jammasin al-Gharbi sometime before the British Mandate ended on 15 May.
- al-Jammasin al-Sharqiالجَمّاسِين الشرقي
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The All That Remains narrative reproduced by PalQuest and Palestine Remembered says only that the village probably fell to Zionist attacks sometime before the British Mandate ended on 15 May.
- Al-Masmiyya al-Saghiraالمسمية الصغيرة
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Palestine Remembered's table estimated 3,776 refugees from the village as of 1998. The 1992 field research carried by PalQuest and Zochrot, drawing on Walid Khalidi's All That Remains, found that virtually no trace of the village remained and that the site was overgrown with weeds, tall grasses, and a scattering of eucalyptus trees; the reached sources do not establish their condition in 2026.
- Al-Sawafir al-Shamaliyyaالسوافير الشمالية
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The 1992 field research recorded in Khalidi's All That Remains, as carried by PalQuest, described a few vacant houses and segments of houses standing amidst wild vegetation, one with a covered porch supported on two columns; an old village road was still identifiable, cactuses and fig trees grew on the site, and the surrounding lands were cultivated.
- Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyyaالسَوافِير الشرقية
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The site description reproduced by PalQuest and Palestine Remembered comes from Walid Khalidi's All That Remains, published in 1992.
- and 7 more
named in this record — 4 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Jerusalemالقدس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Walid Khalidi, born in Jerusalem in 1925, is a historian and a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, long the editor of its Journal of Palestine Studies.
- Nakba
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: A team of field researchers under Walid Khalidi's direction documented 418 Palestinian villages depopulated during the Nakba of 1948, recording for each its location, population, land holdings, and fate — what was destroyed, what was built over it, and what physically remains: a shrine, a schoolhouse, a row of cacti marking where a village stood.
- The Nakba
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: A team of field researchers under Walid Khalidi's direction documented 418 Palestinian villages depopulated during the Nakba of 1948, recording for each its location, population, land holdings, and fate — what was destroyed, what was built over it, and what physically remains: a shrine, a schoolhouse, a row of cacti marking where a village stood.
- Walid Khalidiوليد خالدي
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: A team of field researchers under Walid Khalidi's direction documented 418 Palestinian villages depopulated during the Nakba of 1948, recording for each its location, population, land holdings, and fate — what was destroyed, what was built over it, and what physically remains: a shrine, a schoolhouse, a row of cacti marking where a village stood.
on a related subject — 36 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- The Sabr
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Shared tags: "nakba", "villages".
- A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "nakba".
- Acreعكا
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "nakba".
- Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "documentation".
- Application Instituting Proceedings — South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention, Gaza)
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "documentation".
- B'Tselem — The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "documentation".
- and 30 more
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948.” Library, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/library/all-that-remains/.- MLA
“All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948.” Library, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/library/all-that-remains/. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-all-that-remains, title = {All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/library/all-that-remains/}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }