Rantiya

Rantiya (Arabic: رنتيّة‎, known to the Romans as Rantia and to the Crusaders as Rentie) was a Palestinian village, located 16 kilometers east of Jaffa. During the British Mandate in Palestine, in 1945 it had a population of 590 inhabitants.

Rantiya

رنتيّة

Rantieh, Rantia, Rentie
Etymology: Rantieh, from a personal name[1]
Rantiya
Coordinates: 32°2′40″N 34°55′17″E
Palestine grid142/161
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictJaffa
Date of depopulation10 July 1948[2]
Area
 • Total4,389 dunams (4.389 km2 or 1.695 sq mi)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total590[4][3]
Cause(s) of depopulationMilitary assault by Yishuv forces
Current LocalitiesMazor,[5] Nofekh,[5] Rinatia[5][6]

Those inhabitants became refugees after a 10 July 1948 assault by Israeli forces from the Palmach's Eighth Armored Brigade and the Third Infantry Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.[5]

Of the over 100 houses that made up the village, only three remain standing today.[5] The Jewish localities of Mazor, Nofekh, and Rinatia are located on Rantiya's former lands.[5]

History

The village was situated on a low mound on an ancient site.[7]

During the Crusader era the village was known as Rentie, Rantia, or Rentia.[8][9]

In 1122 the tithes of the village were granted to the hospital of the church of St John at Nablus.[10] In 1166, the tithes were granted to the Knights Hospitaller.[11] A vaulted building in the village, named al-Baubariya, has been dated to the Crusader period.[8]

Ottoman era

Rantiya, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in 1557 the revenues of the village were designated for the new waqf of Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), wife of Suleiman the Magnificent.[12] In the late 1550s, local disturbances decreased the income from the village by nearly 40%.[13]

In 1596, Rantiya was a village in the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla ( liwa' ("district") of Gaza), with a population of 132. Villagers paid taxes to the authorities for the crops that they cultivated, which included wheat, barley, fruit, and sesame as well as on other types of property, such as goats and beehives.[14] All the villagers were Muslim.[15] All of the revenues; a total of 5,300 Akçe, went to a Waqf.[15]

In 1838 it was noted as a Muslim village called Rentieh in the Lydda administrative region,[16] while in 1856 the village was named Renthieh on the map of Southern Palestine that Heinrich Kiepert published that year.[17]

In 1870 the French explorer Victor Guérin visited and described the village as partially destroyed,[18] while an Ottoman village list from about the same year showed that Rantiya had 33 houses and a population of 116, though the population count included men only.[19][20]

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine found Rantiya to be a small village built of adobe bricks. At that time a main road passed right next to it.[21]

British Mandate era
Rantiya 1941 1:20,000
Rantiya 1945 1:250,000

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Rantieh had a population of 351, all Muslims.[22] increasing the 1931 census to 411, still all Muslims, in a total of 105 houses.[23]

By 1945 the population had increased to 590 Muslims,[4] while the total land area was 4,389 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[3] Of this, 505 were allocated for citrus and bananas, 99 were for plantations and irrigable land, 3,518 for cereals,[24] while 13 dunams were classified as built-up areas.[25]

1948, and after

In 1992 the village remains were described as "Three deserted houses, standing amid weeds, tall wild grasses, and the debris of several other houses, are all that remains of the village. Two of the deserted houses are made of stone, the third of concrete. All have rectangular doors and windows. Two of them have flat roofs; the third may have had a gabled roof."[5]

References in contemporary culture

In the film Soraida: A Woman of Palestine, by Tahani Rached, the main character explains that she named her daughter and son, Rantia and Aram, after Palestinian villages to preserve the memory of the homeland.[26][27]

See also
  • List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict

References
  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 217
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xviii, village #212. Also gives cause of depopulation. According to Morris the village had also been depopulated the 28 April 1948, also at that time by Military assault.
  3. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 53
  4. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 28
  5. Khalidi, 1992. p. 252
  6. Morris, 2004, p. xxii, settlement #97, in 1949
  7. Dauphin, 1998, p. 821
  8. Pringle, 1997, p. 90
  9. Rey, 1883, p. 414
  10. Röhricht, 1893, RRH, pp. 22-23, no 100; cited in Pringle, 1998, p. 104. Note that H. E. Mayer argued that the 1122 document was a forgery.
  11. Prutz, 1881, p. 167; Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 110, No. 423; both cited in Pringle, 1997, p. 90
  12. Singer, 2002, p. 50, citing TSAE-7816/8. (TSAE=Topkapi Saray Arsivi, Evrak) This document reiterate what was transferred on 14 Ramazan 963 AH.
  13. Singer, 2002, p. 124
  14. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 155. Quoted in Khalidi 1992, p. 252
  15. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 155
  16. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 121
  17. Kiepert, 1856, Map of Southern Palestine
  18. Guérin, 1875, pp. 391-2
  19. Socin, 1879, p. 159
  20. Hartmann, 1883, p. 138 also found 33 houses
  21. Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 253, Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 252
  22. Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jaffa, p. 20
  23. Mills, 1932, p. 15.
  24. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 96
  25. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 146
  26. Elia, Nada (Fall 2006). "This Is Not Living, and: Women in Struggle, and: Soraida, A Woman of Palestine (review)". Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. 2 (3): 125–130. doi:10.1353/jmw.2006.0028.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  27. "Soraida: A Woman of Palestine". NFB.ca. Retrieved 2009-01-14.

Bibliography
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