Hebron district · depopulated 1948 · 2 min read
Dayr Nakhkhas
دَيْر نَخّاس
Dayr Nakhkhas was a village of 600 people on a limestone hilltop above Wadi Bayt Jibrin, whose children walked to school in the neighbouring villages. It was occupied on 29 October 1948 — the day of the massacre at al-Dawayima, which Morris records as setting off a mass flight from the area around it.
See Dayr Nakhkhas on the Atlas31.6157°N · 34.9217°EDayr Nakhkhas stood on a hilltop of hard limestone 325 metres up, overlooking Wadi Bayt Jibrin to the north, about 20 kilometres from Hebron. It lay on the south side of the Hebron–Bayt Jibrin–al-Majdal highway and was joined by secondary roads to several villages around it. The second part of the name may come from a common Semitic word for copper. In 1596 it was a village of 72 people in the nahiya of Halil, in the liwa’ of Jerusalem, taxed on wheat, barley, olives, goats and beehives. In the late nineteenth century it was a small village on a high steep hill above a valley to the north.
Its plan was rectangular and it grew along the road towards Hebron. The people were Muslims and their houses were stone. The village had no school of its own; the children attended school in the neighbouring villages. The 1931 census counted 451 people; the 1945 statistics counted 600, on 14,476 dunums of which 4,887 were under cereals and 362 irrigated or orchard. The villagers lived mainly on farming and livestock, growing grain, olives and grapes, and pastured their goats and sheep on the uncultivated land, which was wooded and covered with scrub and wild grass. Dayr Nakhkhas sat in country dense with antiquities: some fifteen archaeological sites lay within its land, one of them the village itself.
The village was occupied at the same time as Bayt Jibrin, in the third stage of Operation Yoav. After the main part of the operation was over, some Israeli units carried on eastwards into the Hebron area and took Dayr Nakhkhas on 29 October 1948. On the same day Israeli forces committed the massacre at al-Dawayima nearby; Benny Morris records that the massacre set off a mass flight of people from the area around Dayr Nakhkhas.
No Israeli settlement stands on the village’s land. Nechusha, founded in 1982, is about three kilometres due west on the land of Khirbat Umm Burj. Nothing remains of the village but a few deserted houses and the rubble of the others. One of the deserted houses is concrete, with rectangular windows and a flat roof; it is marked with Arabic graffiti and stands in tall wild grass. There is a fenced-off cave. The land around it is farmed by Israelis.
Sources
- Dayr Nakhkhas — Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question (PalQuest)
- Dayr Nakhkhas — Zochrot, drawn from Walid Khalidi, All That Remains (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992)
Cited works
2- palquest.org — dayr nakhkhas(opens in a new tab)https://www.palquest.org/en/place/16975/dayr-nakhkhas
- zochrot.org — en(opens in a new tab)https://www.zochrot.org/villages/village_details/49108/en
Connected in the archive
12 connected records12 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
named in this record — 5 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Al-Dawayimaالدوايمة
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: After the main part of the operation was over, some Israeli units carried on eastwards into the Hebron area and took Dayr Nakhkhas on 29 October 1948. On the same day Israeli forces committed the massacre at al-Dawayima nearby; Benny Morris records that the massacre set off a mass flight of people from the area around Dayr Nakhkhas.
- Bayt Jibrinبيت جبرين
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Dayr Nakhkhas stood on a hilltop of hard limestone 325 metres up, overlooking Wadi Bayt Jibrin to the north, about 20 kilometres from Hebron.
- Hebronالخليل
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Dayr Nakhkhas stood on a hilltop of hard limestone 325 metres up, overlooking Wadi Bayt Jibrin to the north, about 20 kilometres from Hebron.
- Jerusalemالقدس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: In 1596 it was a village of 72 people in the nahiya of Halil, in the liwa' of Jerusalem, taxed on wheat, barley, olives, goats and beehives.
- Khirbat Umm Burjأم برجmapped, not yet written up
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Nechusha, founded in 1982, is about three kilometres due west on the land of Khirbat Umm Burj.
in the same district — 7 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- 'Ajjurعَجُّور
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Al-Qubaybaالقُبَيْبَة
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Bayt Nattifبيت نتِّيف
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Dayr al-Dubbanدَيْر الدُبّان
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Kudnaكُدْنا
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Tall al-Safiتلّ الصافي
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- and 1 more
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“Dayr Nakhkhas.” Village Memory, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/memory/dayr-nakhkhas.- MLA
“Dayr Nakhkhas.” Village Memory, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/memory/dayr-nakhkhas. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-dayr-nakhkhas, title = {Dayr Nakhkhas}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/memory/dayr-nakhkhas}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }