Name and Identification

Mandate records use the forms Nuseirat and 'Arab el Nuseirat.

Later Palestinian oral-history documentation uses the name 'Ayn al-Sirat for a locality inhabited by al-Nusayrat families and other households and identifies Ein Sarid as having been established on its site after the Nakba.

The geographic setting, later settlement history, and association with al-Nusayrat strongly connect the two names, but the official Mandate statistical tables do not explicitly state that Nuseirat and 'Ayn al-Sirat are interchangeable names. This article therefore presents 'Ayn al-Sirat as the local name associated with the al-Nusayrat settlement while preserving that qualification.

Location

'Arab al-Nusayrat stood in the coastal plain of the Tulkarm Subdistrict in the rural area between al-Tayyiba, Qalansuwa, and the agricultural settlements farther west.

Palestinian community documentation places the village site approximately 4 km west of Qalansuwa.

The surrounding area was fertile and strongly associated with citrus groves, vegetable cultivation, and trade with al-Tayyiba, Qalansuwa, Tulkarm, and other coastal towns.

Relationship with Al-Tayyiba

The close connection between Nuseirat and al-Tayyiba is visible in the official 1944/45 Village Statistics, which combined al-Tayyiba, Khirbat al-'Amarir, Nuseirat, Khirbat Takla, and Kefar Ya'vetz in a single statistical unit.

Many displaced inhabitants of the al-Nusayrat locality later settled in al-Tayyiba, where their descendants remained part of the local community.

Population

No complete independent official population series can safely be constructed for 'Arab al-Nusayrat.

One later Palestinian database gives approximately 200 inhabitants in 1948, while Palestinian community documentation gives roughly 300. Neither figure is treated here as an official census count.

Number of Houses

The Mandate statistics do not provide an independently usable house count for 'Arab al-Nusayrat immediately before the Nakba.

Local oral history concerning 'Ayn al-Sirat estimates that approximately fifty houses existed before demolition. This is a retrospective community estimate rather than an official house count.

Land Ownership – Combined 1944/45 Statistical Unit

No independent official land-area figure is available for 'Arab al-Nusayrat alone.

The Government of Palestine combined its lands statistically with al-Tayyiba, Khirbat al-'Amarir, Khirbat Takla, and Kefar Ya'vetz, producing a total unit of 40,625 dunums.

Using the ownership terminology employed by Palestine Remembered, while emphasizing that these are combined-unit figures:

This corresponds to the official categories of 32,750 Arab dunums, 6,294 Jewish dunums, and 1,581 Public dunums.

The published statistics do not permit the independent al-Nusayrat share to be separated reliably.

Land Use in 1944/45

The following figures apply to the entire combined al-Tayyiba–Khirbat al-'Amarir–Nuseirat–Khirbat Takla–Kefar Ya'vetz statistical unit:

None of these acreage figures should be presented as independent land-use statistics for 'Arab al-Nusayrat alone.

Local Estimate of 'Ayn al-Sirat Lands

Palestinian oral-history documentation offers a very different local estimate, stating that approximately 3,000 dunums were associated with the settlement and that these lands had originally formed part of al-Tayyiba's communal holdings.

This figure represents local historical memory and does not appear as a separate cadastral unit in the 1945 Village Statistics. It is therefore not mathematically merged with the official combined statistics.

Economic Life

The community depended primarily on agriculture, work in citrus groves, and livestock raising.

Local oral testimony records oranges, wheat, barley, eggplant, okra, cucumbers, tomatoes, and other crops.

Residents also kept cattle, camels, sheep, chickens, and horses.

Agricultural produce was marketed in Tulkarm and Jaffa as well as in nearby communities.

This pattern is consistent with the wider agricultural economy of the Tulkarm coastal plain, where citrus, vegetables, and field crops expanded substantially during the Mandate period.

Village Society and Buildings

Local documentation states that 'Ayn al-Sirat expanded during the 1930s.

A large guesthouse or diwan belonging to mukhtar 'Abd al-Latif Rabi' served as a gathering place for men from the village and surrounding communities.

Oral-history sources mention families including al-Luh, 'Amrur, Takla, al-Tawil, and al-Nusayrat among the inhabitants.

These details are preserved as local oral history because no independent Khalidi statistical entry exists for 'Arab al-Nusayrat.

The Mosque and Surviving Building

Palestine Remembered documents a surviving building identified by contributors as the mosque of the depopulated village of 'Arab al-Nusayrat and states that it was later converted into a synagogue.

Another Palestinian oral-history account instead states that the surviving building was the house of mukhtar 'Abd al-Latif Rabi', which was converted into a synagogue.

The local sources therefore disagree on the original identity of the surviving structure. The secure conclusion is that a Palestinian building survived and was subsequently used as a synagogue, while identifying it conclusively as the mosque or the mukhtar's house requires additional architectural or cadastral evidence.

Depopulation of 'Arab al-Nusayrat

The strongest available chronological evidence comes from an intelligence report dated 30 June 1948 and published by PalQuest.

The report records 3 February 1948 for “Arab an-Nuseirat,” states that the entire population left, and attributes the evacuation, in the report's own terminology, to “our actions.”

It identifies al-Tayyiba and Qalansuwa as the destinations of the displaced inhabitants and states that the village was empty.

This article therefore treats 3 February 1948 as the strongest documented date for the depopulation of 'Arab al-Nusayrat.

Disagreement Over the Date

Some later Palestinian community material places the displacement in April 1948.

The June 1948 intelligence report, however, explicitly records 3 February and is substantially closer in time to the event.

3 February is therefore preferred while the later April tradition is preserved as a documented discrepancy.

The Alexandroni Brigade

Some later Palestinian secondary sources identify the Alexandroni Brigade as the force associated with the depopulation of al-Nusayrat, and a local oral-history account also describes Alexandroni activity in the area.

The intelligence report that establishes the 3 February date, however, does not identify a brigade or battalion, and PalQuest does not provide a separate village entry naming a village-specific military unit.

The most precise formulation is therefore: general Zionist military organization: Haganah; Alexandroni Brigade: identified by later Palestinian secondary and local sources but not independently confirmed in the principal al-Nusayrat document; village-specific battalion: unknown.

Occupation and Depopulation Chronology

1. 01
   January–early February 1948

   Growing Zionist military activity in the central coastal region

   Military attacks and pressure intensified against Palestinian communities in the coastal plain.

2. 02
   3 February 1948

   Depopulation of 'Arab al-Nusayrat

   The intelligence report published by PalQuest states that the entire population left as a result of what the report calls “our actions.”

3. 03
   3 February 1948

   Destinations of the inhabitants

   The displaced inhabitants went primarily to al-Tayyiba and Qalansuwa; the report states that the village became empty.

4. 04
   Not separately documented

   Direct military entry

   The principal report does not provide a detailed battle narrative or identify the unit that physically occupied the site.

5. 05
   1949 according to local oral history

   Demolition of village houses

   Palestinian oral-history documentation states that most of the approximately fifty houses were demolished.

6. 06
   1950

   Establishment of Ein Sarid

   Palestinian local sources associate Ein Sarid with the former al-Nusayrat/'Ayn al-Sirat village site.

Israeli Settlement on the Village Site

Palestinian local documentation associates the former 'Arab al-Nusayrat/'Ayn al-Sirat site with Ein Sarid, established in 1950 after the Palestinian inhabitants had been displaced.

Because the 1945 Government of Palestine statistics do not provide a separate cadastral unit for al-Nusayrat, the most accurate formulation is that Ein Sarid was established on the site or ruins of the depopulated Palestinian settlement associated with 'Arab al-Nusayrat. The precise acreage of independently defined al-Nusayrat land incorporated into the settlement cannot be calculated from the published official tables.

'Arab al-Nusayrat Today

Most of the Palestinian built environment of 'Arab al-Nusayrat/'Ayn al-Sirat disappeared after the Nakba.

Palestinian oral history states that the village had approximately fifty houses and that most were demolished in 1949.

Palestine Remembered documents a surviving Palestinian structure at the site that was later used as a synagogue, although local accounts disagree over whether the original building was the village mosque or the mukhtar's house.

Later Palestinian community documentation indicates that many displaced villagers and their descendants settled in al-Tayyiba.

These descriptions rely partly on oral history and community field documentation and do not constitute a comprehensive archaeological or on-site survey of the locality's condition in 2026.

Sources

• PalQuest – Israeli Intelligence Report on the Depopulation of Palestine, including 'Arab an-Nuseirat on 3 February 1948
• Village Statistics 1945 – Population and Land Ownership, Tulkarm Subdistrict
• Village Statistics 1945 – Cultivable Land, Tulkarm Subdistrict
• Village Statistics 1945 – Built-up and Non-Cultivable Land, Tulkarm Subdistrict
• Palestine Remembered – Community documentation of the al-Nusayrat village site west of Qalansuwa
• Palestine Remembered – Qalansuwa, including community documentation related to 'Arab al-Nusayrat
• Arab48 – Palestinian oral history of 'Ayn al-Sirat and Ein Sarid
• Palestinian Encyclopedia – Arab tribes of the Tulkarm district, including al-Nusayrat
• Institute for Palestine Studies – Walid Khalidi, All That Remains