Mas-ha

Mas-ha
Other transcription(s)
 • Arabic مسحة

Mas'ha, seen from Elkana
Mas-ha

Location of Mas-ha within the Palestinian territories

Coordinates: 32°06′28″N 35°03′06″E / 32.10778°N 35.05167°E / 32.10778; 35.05167Coordinates: 32°06′28″N 35°03′06″E / 32.10778°N 35.05167°E / 32.10778; 35.05167
Palestine grid 155/168
Governorate Salfit
Government
 • Type Village council
Population (2007)
 • Jurisdiction 2,003
Name meaning "Gravelly soil"[1]

Mas-ha (Arabic: مسحة‎‎) is a Palestinian village located in the Salfit Governorate in the northern West Bank, 37 kilometers southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of 2,003 in 2007.[2]

History

Potsherds from the Byzantine, Byzantine/Umayyad, Crusader/Ayyubid and Mamluk era have been found.[3]

Ottoman era

Potsherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found.[3] Masha appeared in 1596 Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal of the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of five households, all Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summercrops, olive trees, occasional revenues, goats and beehives, and a press for olives or grapes.[4]

French explorer Victor Guérin passed by the village in 1870, and estimated it as having about 300-350 inhabitants, and fig-tree lined borders.[5] In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Mes-ha as "a good-sized village, with a high central house, but partly ruinous. It is supplied by cisterns, and the houses are of stone."[6]

British Mandate era

In a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Mas-ha (called: Masha) had a population of 80, all Muslims,[7] while in the 1931 census it had 20 occupied houses and a population of 87, again all Muslim.[8]

In 1945 the population was 110, all Muslim[9] while the total land area was 8,263 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[10] Of this, 1,612 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 2,482 for cereals,[11] while 18 dunams were classified as built-up areas.[12]

1948-1967

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Mas-ha came under Jordanian rule.

Post-1967

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Mas-ha has been under Israeli occupation.

References

  1. ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 239
  2. ↑ 2007 PCBS Census Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p. 112.
  3. 1 2 Finkelstein, 1997, p. 264
  4. ↑ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 131
  5. ↑ Guérin, 1875, p. 145 ff
  6. ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 286
  7. ↑ Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Nablus, p. 26
  8. ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 63
  9. ↑ Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 19
  10. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 60
  11. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 107
  12. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 157

Bibliography

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