Salbit

Salbit
Salbit
Arabic	سلبيت
Name meaning	from personal name
Also spelled	Selebi, Shaalvim, Shaalbim, Shaalabbin
Subdistrict	Ramle
Coordinates
Palestine grid	148/141
Population	510 (1945)
Area	6,111 dunams 6.1 km²
Date of depopulation	15–16 July 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Shaalvim

Salbit (Arabic: سلبيت‎‎) was a Palestinian Arab village located 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) southeast of al-Ramla. It has been identified with the biblical town of Shaalabbin (also, Shaalbim) which was located 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) northwest of biblical Aijalon (modern day Yalo). Salbit was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War after a military assault by Israeli forces. The Israeli locality of Shaalvim was established on the former village's lands in 1951.

History

Biblical references

Shaalabbin is mentioned in Joshua 19:42 as a city of the southern Dan whereas in the Septuagint (LXX) it is mentioned as one of the cities in which the Amorites continued to dwell after the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. The name has no obvious Hebrew derivation and may be a survival of a form of pre-Canaanite speech. Shaalbim is also mentioned in 1 Kings 4:9 as an area under the administration of Ben-Deker, one of twelve officers who is said to have paid tribute to King Solomon, and in Judges 1:35. In 1883 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine tentatively identified Shaalabbin with Salbit

1st century

Jerome also describes it as part of the territory of the Dan, transcribing its name at that time as Selebi, a form also used by Josephus.

4-5th century

In 1949, archaeologists excavated the remains of a Samaritan synagogue there that was dated to the late 4th or early 5th century. Measuring 15.4 x 8 metres, its mosaic floor contains one Greek inscriptions and two in Samaritan. In the centre of the mosaic is a mountain which is thought to be a depiction of Mount Gerizim, a place holy to Samaritans. Rectangular in shape, the synagogue was longitudinally aligned more or less with Mount Gerizim.

Ottoman era

In 1883 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Selbit: "Foundations and caves. The ruins are extensive. A square building stands in the middle. There is a ruined reservoir lined with cement, and walls of rubble."

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Selbit had a population of 296, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 406, still all Muslims, in a total of 71 houses.

The houses in Salbit were made of adobe and stone and were grouped around the village center where the mosque, suq and elementary school was located. The school, built in 1947, had 47 students. The villagers made their living by agriculture and the raising of livestock. The village's drinking water came from a local well.

In 1945 the population was 510, all Arabs, while the total land area was 6,111 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, a total of 4,066 dunums of land were used for cereals, 16 dunums were plantations or irrigated land, while 31 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.

1948 war and aftermath

During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1948 Palestinian exodus from Lydda and Ramle, some of those forcibly expelled were bussed to Latrun on the front lines and from there ordered to walk northward to Salbit. The Lydda death march, as it came to be known, brought hundreds of refugee families to Salbit where they took shelter in a fig grove and were given water and rest for the night before trucks from the Arab Legion began moving some of the families to a Palestinian refugee camp in Ramallah.

Salbit itself was depopulated after a military assault by Israeli forces on 15–16 July 1948. After its depopulation, Israeli forces headed by Yigal Allon used it as a base from which to launch an attack on the strategic hill of Latrun on 18 July, which was spurned by the forces of the Arab Legion who managed to hold on to the site without inflicting any casualties on the Israeli forces. The village structures of Salbit were subsequently completely destroyed, and according to Walid Khalidi, all that remains of the village today are "some cactus plants and shrubs." The estimated number of Palestinian refugees from Salbit as of 1998 was 3,633.

The kibbutz of Shaalvim, named per the site's biblical place name, was established on the former village lands on 13 August 1951 by a Nahal group from the ESRA movement.

See also

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus

External links

• Welcome to Salbit
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17: IAA, Wikimedia commons