Bayt Daras

Bayt Daras (بيت دراس) was a Palestinian Arab town located 32 km northeast of Gaza and approximately 50 m above sea level, which was depopulated in 1948.

History
A grave, dating to the Hellenistic era, probably from the first half of the third century BCE, have been found and excavated at the site.

Bayt Daras was an archaeological site that contained stone foundations and vaulted rooms. The Crusaders built a castle on the hill that overlooked the village. Church endowments and land deeds mention it as Betheras. During the Mamluk rule in Palestine, (1205-1517), Bayt Daras formed part of a mail route from Cairo to Damascus. In this period, in 1325, a khan, or caravanserai, was built in the village.

Bayt Daras was one of twin villages carrying this name, inhabited in the 15th century. In 1459, Mamluk records mention Bayt Daras al-Surgha (Lesser Bayt Daras)'s endowment as a waqf.

Ottoman Empire
In 1517, Bayt Daras was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine. In first Ottoman tax register of 1526/7 the village had a population of 22 Muslim households, and it belonged to the nahiya  (subdistrict) of Gaza (Gaza Sanjak). In 1596 the village also appeared as being in the nahiya of Gaza under the Liwa of Gaza, with a population of 58 Muslim households; an estimated 319 persons. It paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, as well as on goats, beehives and vineyards; a total of 7,900 akçe. 1/24 of the revenue went to a waqf.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the area of Bayt Daras experienced a significant process of settlement decline due to nomadic pressures on local communities. The residents of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, but the land continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages.

In 1838, Beit Daras was noted as a Muslim village in the Gaza district.

French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863, and found it to have 700 inhabitants. In the 1882 PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP), the village of Bayt Daras was described as being surrounded by gardens and olive groves, and it was bordered to the north by a pond.

British Mandate
In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bait Daras had a population of 1,670 Muslims, increasing in the  1931 census of Palestine, to 1,804, still all Muslim, in 401 inhabited houses. In the 1945 statistics Beit Daras had a population of 2,750 Muslims,  with 16,357  dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 832 dunams were allocated to citrus and banana plants, 472 plantations and irrigable land, 14,436 used for cereals, while 88 dunams were built-up land.

State of Israel
In response to hundreds of fighters from Bayt Daras attacking Kibbutz Nitzanim, the village was subject to an Israeli counteroffensive military assault four times. It was defended by the Sudanese Army and a number of local militiamen and, according to Ramzy Baroud, subjected to heavy shelling on March 27–28, 1948, in which nine villagers died and much of the crops were destroyed. The objective of the Palmach's operational plan, 'Operation Lightning' (Mivtza Barak) was to compel the Arab inhabitants of the area to 'move' and by striking one or more population centres to cause an exodus, which was foreseen given the wave of panic that was sweeping Arab communities after the Deir Yassin massacre. Bayt Daras was targeted to be surrounded, to have the villagers surrender and hand over their arms, and if this order was resisted, it was to be mortared, stormed and 'dealt with in the manner of scorched earth'. It was finally captured by military assault on May 11, 1948 by the Givati Brigade during Operation Barak, just prior to the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The village suffered some 50 casualties, and many houses were then blown up, and wells and granaries sabotaged. Bayt Daras had a population of 3,190 living in 709 houses in 1948. In Baroud's account, a massacre took place as people fled the village.

According to the memoirs of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the empty village was reoccupied by Sudanese forces in June, but they left after a signaling error caused them to be shelled by their own side.

Structures in the village were made of stone foundations with vaulted rooms. There were also two elementary schools and two mosques, all of which were demolished after its capture.

Following the war the area was incorporated into the State of Israel. In 1950 the moshav of Giv'ati was built on the site of the village, with two other moshavim, Azrikam, Emunim, established on land that had belonged to Bayt Daras. Later in the 1950s a farm called Zemorot was built on Khirbat Awda, which had also belonged to Bayt Daras.

In 1992 the village site was described: "The only remain of village buildings are the foundations of one house and some scattered rubble. The site is overgrown with wild vegetation interspersed by cactuses and eucalyptus trees. At least one of the streets is clearly recognisable. The surrounding fields are cultivated by the settlements."

Culture
A woman's thob (loose fitting robe with sleeves) dated to about 1930 from the village of Beit Daras is part of the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) collection at Santa Fe. The dress fabric is called abu hizz ahmar (black cotton ground with purple, orange and green stipes of cotton and silk), from Majdal. The only embroidery on the front is below the neck opening. The back panel has three horizontal bands of embroidery, and a local version of the khem-el-basha ("the pashas tent") motif along the hem.