PLace

al-Sawamir

Place
al-Sawamir — السَوامير
Known also as: Khirbat al-Sawamir
District
Haifa
Subdistrict
Haifa
Average Elevation
50 m
Distance from Haifa
22 km
Population
Year Arab Total
1931 * 1439
Number of Houses (1931)
247
*

The village stood on the lower, western slopes of Mount Carmel, overlooking the coastal plain. In 1596, al-Sawamir was a village in the nahiya of Shafa (liwa' of Lajjun), with a population of seventeen. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, as well as on other types of property, such as goats and beehives. Al-Sawamir was classified as a hamlet by the Mandate Palestine Index Gazetteer. Archaeological relics on the site of the village included the foundations of buildings, cut building stones, caves, tombs, and a well.

Although it lay just to the south of the cluster of villages forming the Little Triangle which stood fast against Israeli attacks until the end of July 1948, al-Sawamir probably fell some time before that. The village may have succumbed at the same time as the nearby village of al-Tantura (one of the last coastal communities to be occupied in the area), which was attacked on the night of 22-23 May.

The settlement of En Ayyala was established in 1949 west of the village site on the lands of Kafr Lam. Its inhabitants cultivated the coastal lands adjacent to the village. Ofer, built in 1950, is partly on village land and partly on land that once belonged to the village of Ayn Ghazal.

The ruins of two walls (formerly parts of a building) are visible at the site, which has been fenced in with barbed wire. Pine trees occupy much of the land on the site, and pomegranate and fig trees and cactuses are scattered throughout. The surrounding coastal lands are used by Israeli farmers for growing vegetables and fruit, particularly bananas.