Lazzaza

Lazzaza لزّازة
Village
Etymology: “fastening”,[1]
1870s map 1940s map modern map 1940s with modern overlay map A series of historical maps of the area around Lazzaza (click the buttons)
Lazzaza Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 33°12′21″N 35°36′42″E / 33.20583°N 35.61167°E / 33.20583; 35.61167
Palestine grid	207/290
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Safad
Date of depopulation	May 21, 1948[4]
Area
• Total	1,586 dunams (1.586 km2 or 392 acres)
Population  (1945)
• Total	230[2][3]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Whispering campaign
Current Localities	Beit Hillel.

Lazzaza (Arabic: لزّازة, transliterated as Lazzâza) was a Palestinian Arab village of 230 in the northern Hula Valley next to the Hasbani River, located 27.5 kilometers (17.1 mi) northwest of Safad.^[5] Beit Hillel subsequently expanded onto the land.

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Lazzaza, while under Ottoman rule, as a village of 70 people built of adobe bricks and situated on a plain near a river.^[6]

It was incorporated into the British Mandate of Palestine in 1922. Under the British, Lazzaza had an elementary school, in which 26 students were enrolled in 1945. The residents, mostly Muslims, took advantage of the village's fertile lands, and agriculture became the basis of its economy. The primarily cultivated crops were onions, corn, and fruits, but the beehives were also kept, in addition to some livestock. Some of Lazzaza's inhabitants also fished in the Hasbani River.^[5]

In the 1931 census of Palestine the population of Lazaza was 176, all Muslims, in a total of 39 houses.^[7]

In the 1945 statistics, Lazzaza was counted with the nearby Jewish settlement of Beit Hillel which together constituted a population of 330; 230 were Muslims of Lazzaza, the remaining 100 were Jewish of Beit Hillel.^[2][3]

Types of land use in dunams in the village in 1945:^[8][9]

The land ownership of the village before occupation in dunams:^[3]

The Arabs of Lazzaza fled their village during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on May 21, 1948.^[4] The village was not attacked by Israeli forces, and the probable cause of its depopulation was a "whispering campaign" devised by Palmach commander Yigal Allon during Operation Yiftach, in which rumor would spread about massive Jewish reinforcements approaching the Galilee. According to Walid Khalidi, "only a few scattered houses remain on the village site", and that the residents of Beit Hillel cultivate the surrounding fields.^[5]

• Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel

• Welcome to Lazzaza
• Lazzaza, Zochrot
• Lazzaza, Dr. Khalil Rizk.
• Survey of Western Palestine, map 2: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Lazzaza, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center