title: Khirbat Al-Lawz
text: # Khirbat Al-Lawz
  
  Khirbat Al-Lawz was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jerusalem Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 13, 1948, by the Har'el Brigade of Operation Dani. It was located 11 km west of Jerusalem, situated north of Wadi al-Sarar.
  
  ## History
  
  ### Ottoman era
  
  In 1838, Khirbet el-Lauz was noted as a Muslim village, part of Beni Hasan area, located west of Jerusalem.
  
  In 1863, Victor Guérin found it to be a hamlet of eighty inhabitants, most of them shepherds.
  
  Socin found from an official Ottoman village list from about 1870 that chirbet el-loz had a population of 83, with a total of 38 houses, though the population count included men, only. Hartmann found that chirbet el-loz had 30 houses.
  
  In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Khurbet el Loz as "a village of moderate size on the slope of a high ridge near the summit. It has a sort of terrace below it, and stands some 800 feet (240 meters) above the southern valley. There are rock-cut tombs at the place."
  
  ### British Mandate era
  
  In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Kherbet al-Ley had a population of 234 Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 315 Muslims, in 67 houses.
  
  In the 1945 statistics, the village had a population of 450 Muslims, while the total land area was 4,502 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 728 were used for plantations and irrigable land, 693 for cereals, while 13 dunams were classified as built-up areas.
  
  Khirbat al-Lawz had a shrine dedicated to a local sage known as al-Shaykh Salama.
  
  ### 1948 and after
  
  During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the village held out against Jewish attack until mid-1948, when the inhabitants left after observing the fall of nearby Suba. In May 1950, the village site was settled by a group of Yemenite Jews, but they moved to Even Sapir in the following year.
  
  In 1992 the village site was described: "Grass and thorns grow among the stone rubble and terraces all across the site, as well as almond, fig, and carob trees. A thick forest of cypress and fir trees has been planted around the site. South of it, in the forest, is a well surrounded by several almond and fig trees. The forest is dedicated to the memory of Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general."
  
  ## Gallery
  
  * Mount Eitan and its slope with the remains of the village
  * The remains (stone clusters) above and below the path the transcends nowadays through the village remains
  * Mulberry tree of the village that remained and around it stones and other residues of houses
  * A closer look of the Mulberry tree and the remains
  