PLace

Baysamun

Place
Baysamun — بَيْسَمُون
District
Galilee
Subdistrict
Safad
Average Elevation
75 m
Distance from Safad
16.5 km
Population
Year Arab Total
1931 50 50
1944/45 20 20
Land Ownership (1944/45) in dunums
Year Arab Public Total
1944/45 2057 45 2102
Land Use (1944/45) in dunums
Use Arab Public Total
Non-Cultivable & Built-up (Total)
Use Arab Public Total
Non-Cultivable 133 45 178
113 45 178 (8%)
Cultivable (Total)
Use Arab Total
Cereal 1817 1817
Plantation and Irrigable 107 107
1924 1924 (92%)
Number of Houses (1931)
11

The village stood in a flat area that faced a mountain range on the west and overlooked the aI-Hula Plain on the other sides. It was linked by a short dirt road to a highway that ran west of it and led to Safad and Tiberias. The name Baysamun may have been a derivation of bayt (house) and Ashmun (a Phoenician god), which would mean "temple of Ashmun" in Phoenician. In modern times, Baysamun was a small village, designated a hamlet in the Mandate-era Palestine Index Gazetteer, whose houses were scattered in an east-west direction along the road that connected it to the highway. Its population was predominantly Muslim. Springs lay on its western and southern sides, and orange trees were planted to the north. In 1944/45 the villagers used 1,817 dunums of its land for growing cereals; 107 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.

According to an Israeli military intelligence report in June 1948, the people of Baysamun fled as a direct result of a Palmach "whispering campaign" on 25 May. Such exercises in psychological warfare were an integral part of Operation Yiftach (see Abil al-Qamh, Safad sub-disctrict). [M:122-23)

There are no Israeli settlements on the village site or on village lands.

No traces of the houses remain. The site is occupied by warehouses for agricultural implements used by Kibbutz Manara (201289), which had been established in 1943 (see photo). The land around the site is cultivated and fish ponds have been constructed close to it.

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