Hulayqat

Hulayqat lay on the southern coastal plain twenty and a half kilometers northeast of Gaza, a small village on a gentle slope with a high sandy hill to its west. Its lands were rich in old remains — ruined khirbas with pieces of marble and pottery, cisterns, and a pool — but the village itself was modest: the Ottoman list of about 1870 counted fifty-five men in fourteen houses, and the Survey of Western Palestine in 1883 found cisterns, a pond, and a small garden. Like other villages of the district, its economy rested on rain-fed grain. In 1947 an oil drilling project commenced in Hulayqat, employing some 300 Arab workers. The 1945 survey counted 420 people, all Muslims, on 7,063 dunums.

The village changed hands three times in 1948. It was first captured on 13 May, during Operation Barak, the Haganah offensive to clear the villages north of Gaza before the Mandate ended, and its people were driven out. On 8 July the Egyptian army retook Hulayqat, stationing a well-fortified battalion of its 4th Brigade there, later reinforced, and some of the villagers returned to their homes. The village then sat on the Egyptian front line for three months, until the Giv’ati Brigade captured it on 19 October during Operation Yoav — the offensive that broke the ‘Separation Corridor’ and cut the Egyptian forces in the Negev in two.

Walid Khalidi, inspecting the ruin in 1992, found it partially forested with sycamore, Christ’s-thorn trees, and cactus; one of the old village roads had been paved. No Israeli settlement was established on the village site itself.

Sources

• Hulayqat — Palestine Remembered
• Hulayqat — Zochrot
• Hulayqat — Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question (PalQuest)