Sajad () was a Palestinian village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was located south of Ramla. Sajad was established in the late 19th century near a local train station.Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 379 It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli war.Khalidi, 1992, p. 410
History In 1838, Sejad was noted as a place "in ruins or deserted."Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 120
The village of Sajad was the site of a railway station built by the French in Ottoman era Palestine. In August 1892, the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway service was initiated; the train stopped in Sajad.Rafiq (1990):961. Cited in Khalidi, 1992, p.409 The station was closed after a new railway line and station were built at nearby Wadi Sarar in 1915.Gilbar, 1990, p. 209
The land which the villagers cultivated, was at one time owned by the Ottoman sultan Abd al-Hamid, but it was taken from him by the Ottoman government in 1908. After this, the village land was classified as jiftlik land, owned by the government but leased on a long-term basis to the villagers.Khalidi, 1992, p. 409
British Mandate era In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Sajad had a population of 221 Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p. 21 increasing in the 1931 census to 300, still all Muslims, in a total of 66 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 23.
The village did not have a school on its own, but in 1945–46 it started sending its students to a school in Qazaza, a village to the southeast.Khalidi, 1992, pp. 405, 410
In the 1945 statistics the population was 370, all Muslims, while the total land area was 2,795 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 68 Of this, a total of 1,687 dunums of land were used for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 117. Also cited in Khalidi, 1992, p409 while 19 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 167
1948 and after A military operation planned by the pre-state Israeli forces against the village of Sajad as part of Operation Nahshon is recorded in a document from the Nahshon Headquarters to the 52nd Battalion, dated 15 April 1948.Morris, 2004, pp. 235, 293–294 According to Benny Morris, "Battalion 3 was ordered to annihilate and destroy the village of Sajad." According to Khalidi the village was taken on 9–10 July as part of the Givati Brigade's Operation An-Far.
Some Palestinian refugees from Sajad continue to express a desire to return to the site of their former village and have voiced distrust toward Arab countries in which they live as refugees. Hassan, a refugee in the Marka camp in Jordan, described "the Arabs" as "traitors" and said he would prefer to "live in a tent in my homeland than a castle anywhere else", expressing his view that a home elsewhere would never truly be his.Chatty and Hunt, 2005, p. 96
According to Walid Khalidi, in 1992 the site of the former village of Sajad was inaccessible, as it was a military zone in Israel.
See also Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel
References
Bibliography
External links Welcome To Sajad Sajad, Zochrot Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16: IAA, Wikimedia commons Sajad at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center