Jerusalem district · depopulated 1948 · 2 min read
Sataf
صَطاف
Sataf was a village of 540 people on a steep slope ten kilometres west of Jerusalem, watered by two springs and selling its produce in the city's markets. The Har'el Brigade attacked it on 13–14 July 1948. Its spring is now an Israeli tourist site and its terraces are still standing.
See Sataf on the Atlas31.7691°N · 35.1273°ESataf stood halfway down the southeastern slope of a mountain 600 metres up, about ten kilometres west of Jerusalem, looking over Wadi al-Sarar half a kilometre to the east. A secondary road linked it to the Jaffa–Jerusalem highway to the northeast, and dirt paths to the villages nearby. In the late nineteenth century it was a village of moderate size, built of stone on the steep side of a valley and divided into four quarters; new building later extended along the road to ‘Ayn Karim and down the eastern slope towards the wadi. Opposite the village, on the far slope south of the wadi, stood the Habis monastery.
The people were Muslims. There were a few shops, and two springs supplied domestic water. The 1931 census counted 381 people in 101 houses; the 1945 statistics counted 540, on 3,775 dunums of which 465 were under cereals and 928 irrigated or orchard. The land was planted in grain, vegetables, olives and fruit, some of it rainfed and some irrigated from the springs. Trees and herbs on the heights were used as fodder for grazing animals. The villagers sold what they grew in the markets of Jerusalem.
While Operation Dani was in progress around Lydda and Ramla, Israeli forces took a cluster of villages east of that zone along the western approaches to Jerusalem. Sataf was one of them, attacked on 13–14 July 1948 by the Har’el Brigade, which formed part of the force assembled for Dani. Zochrot gives 14 July and the same brigade.
No Israeli settlement was built on Sataf’s land. Many half-destroyed walls still stand, some of them with their arched doorways; the walls of a few houses with collapsed roofs are nearly intact, and a broken-down military jeep lies among the rubble. The ground around the village spring, east of the site beside the ruins of a rectangular stone house, has been turned into an Israeli tourist site, and a Jewish family has settled on the western side and fenced off part of the village area. The terraces around the village are covered with almond, olive and fig, and with cactus. The forest planted around the site by the Jewish National Fund is an extension of the Moshe Dayan forest planted on the lands of Khirbat al-Lawz.
Sources
- Sataf — Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question (PalQuest)
- Sataf — Zochrot, drawn from Walid Khalidi, All That Remains (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992)
Cited works
2- palquest.org — sataf(opens in a new tab)https://www.palquest.org/en/place/17142/sataf
- zochrot.org — en(opens in a new tab)https://www.zochrot.org/villages/village_details/49359/en
Connected in the archive
28 connected records28 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
named in this record — 4 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Ein Karemعين كارم
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: In the late nineteenth century it was a village of moderate size, built of stone on the steep side of a valley and divided into four quarters; new building later extended along the road to 'Ayn Karim and down the eastern slope towards the wadi.
- Jerusalemالقدس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Sataf stood halfway down the southeastern slope of a mountain 600 metres up, about ten kilometres west of Jerusalem, looking over Wadi al-Sarar half a kilometre to the east.
- Khirbat al-Lawzخربة اللَوْز
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The forest planted around the site by the Jewish National Fund is an extension of the Moshe Dayan forest planted on the lands of Khirbat al-Lawz.
- Lyddaاللد
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: While Operation Dani was in progress around Lydda and Ramla, Israeli forces took a cluster of villages east of that zone along the western approaches to Jerusalem.
in the same district — 24 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- 'Allarعَلاّر
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Jerusalem district.
- 'Artufعَرْتُوف
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Jerusalem district.
- 'Islinعِسْلِين
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Jerusalem district.
- Al-Malihaالمالِحَة
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Jerusalem district.
- Al-Qabuالقبو
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Jerusalem district.
- Al-Qastalالقسطل
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Jerusalem district.
- and 18 more
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“Sataf.” Village Memory, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/memory/sataf.- MLA
“Sataf.” Village Memory, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/memory/sataf. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-sataf, title = {Sataf}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/memory/sataf}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }