Khirbet al-Tannur

Before the Nakba

The village was located 18.5 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem, at the northern end of a valley that ran from north to south before bending westward. Its houses lay along this western bend of the valley, on the northern side of a secondary road running eastward toward Bethlehem.

In the early Ottoman period, Khirbet al-Tannur was a sister village to al-Allar al-Fauqa (Upper Allar) (155125), and was known as al-Allar al-Sufla (Lower Allar). In 1596, al-Allar al-Sufla was a village located in the Jerusalem subdistrict, part of the Jerusalem sanjak, with a population of 39 people. It paid taxes on crops such as wheat, barley, and olives.

The traveler Edward Robinson observed the village in 1838, when the remains of a church were still visible there. He noted that a village bearing the same name, al-Allar al-Tahta, existed in the same area, with a population of 400 in 1875.

However, the site appears to have been abandoned for a period afterward. Khirbet al-Tannur was then resettled during the British Mandate period, and was classified as a farm in the indexed Palestine geographical directory.

Occupation of the Village and Ethnic Cleansing

Although no information is available about the village itself, its location indicates that it was occupied in the context of Operation HaHar, carried out by Zionist militias, and it most likely fell between 21 and 22 October 1948.

The village's lands were annexed to and merged with the neighboring lands of al-Allar. Two Zionist colonies exist on these lands, the closest to Khirbet al-Tannur being Mata, established in 1950.

Six houses were destroyed, their rubble scattered across the site, while four houses still stand. Almond, olive, and cypress trees grow at the northern end of the site. To the east, some eucalyptus trees grow around the remains of a stone house, while a spring flows to the north of this ruined house.