Sa'sa'

Sa’sa’ was a Palestinian village situated atop a rocky hill in the heart of the Upper Galilee Mountains. The village lay at the intersection of a network of roads that connected it to nearby towns and villages, including Safad. The Arab geographer Abu Ubayd Allah al-Bakri (d. 1094 CE) noted that travelers passed through Sa’sa’ en route from Dayr al-Qasi to Safad.

In 1596, Sa’sa’ was recorded as a village in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jira, within the liwa’ (district) of Safad, with a population of 457. It paid taxes on agricultural products such as wheat, barley, olives, and fruits, as well as on other sources of revenue including goats, beehives, vineyards, and a press used for either olives or grapes.

In the late 19th century, Sa’sa’ was described as a village built on a low hill, surrounded by grapevines, fig, and olive trees, with a population of around 100. Due to its proximity to Lebanon and its strategic location near several roads, the British authorities established watchtowers and barbed wire fences in the village in the late 1930s to monitor Palestinian resistance fighters and to prevent support from crossing the border.

The village houses, made of stone and mud, were closely packed, forming rows separated by narrow alleyways. Sa’sa’ had several wells that provided water for its residents, who were all Muslims. The village also contained a small market, shops, a mosque, and two elementary schools, one for boys and one for girls. Villagers cleared wild vegetation surrounding the village and replaced it with fruit-bearing trees such as apples, olives, and grapes.

In the 1944/1945 statistics, a total of 1,496 dunums of land were dedicated to cereal crops, and 1,404 dunums were irrigated or used as orchards.

The site of the village dates back to the Bronze Age (early 2nd millennium BCE), with archaeological remains including walls, tombs, cisterns, and olive and grape presses. One village building remained standing—though abandoned and damaged—until the 1960s, when bulldozers destroyed much of the remaining village. That structure was likely built in the 18th century, while its foundation was dated by archaeologists to the 4th century CE.

Occupation and Ethnic Cleansing

Two massacres were committed in Sa’sa’ by Haganah forces in 1948—the first in mid-February, and the second in late October.

On 15 February 1948, a unit from the Third Palmach Battalion raided the village on the grounds that it was being used as a base by Arab fighters, both locals and others. According to the Haganah’s own account, the orders given to the unit’s commander, Moshe Kelman, were to blow up 20 houses and inflict as many casualties as possible.

The raiding force entered the village at night, planted explosives in several homes, and detonated them. As a result, ten houses were completely or partially destroyed, and “dozens of people” were killed, according to Haganah estimates. The operation's commander later summarized the attack as having "caused great panic in the hearts of the residents in the surrounding villages.” The event was referred to in The History of the Independence Party as “one of the boldest raids deep into enemy territory.”

However, contemporary media reports contradicted claims that the village had been used as a military base. According to The New York Times, a large group of armed men entered the village and planted explosives without encountering resistance. The report stated that 11 villagers were killed, including five children, and three houses were destroyed completely, with 11 others severely damaged. The paper interpreted the attack as evidence that Zionist forces had initiated offensives in northern Galilee. The Associated Press also reported that the same attackers carried out a simultaneous raid on the village of Taitaba.

The second massacre occurred on 10 October 1948, during the Israeli occupation of the village as part of Operation Hiram. According to Haganah sources, the Seventh Brigade (Sheva) seized Sa’sa’ easily and met no resistance. Nevertheless, acts of mass killing were committed in the village, as acknowledged by Haganah Chief of Staff Yisrael Galili.

According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, Galili later informed leaders of the Mapam Party in a meeting held a week after the village's occupation that some villagers were expelled as well.

Villagers interviewed later said that some residents had fled early in the morning, upon seeing Israeli aircraft bombing the nearby villages of Safsaf and al-Ghajar, and hearing gunfire throughout the night. Others fled later after learning about the massacre in Safsaf, as reported by eyewitnesses interviewed by Palestinian historian Nafez Nazzal. However, no further details about the Safsaf massacre were provided in this context.

The suffering of Sa’sa’s residents is reflected in a chilling testimony from Moshe Carmel, commander of Israel’s Northern Front, who recounted a scene he witnessed near the village following its occupation:

“Suddenly, I saw a tall man by the side of the road, bent over, digging through the hard, rocky soil with his bare hands. I stopped and saw, beneath an olive tree, a small pit in the ground dug by hands and fingernails. The man gently laid the body of a child—who had died in his mother’s arms—into the hole, then covered it with earth and small stones.”

The Village Today

Some ancient olive trees still grow on the former village site. Several houses and stone walls remain standing, some of which are now inhabited by residents of the Israeli settlement built on the site. One such house has arched doorways and windows. A large portion of the surrounding lands has been turned into forests, while the rest is cultivated by Israeli farmers.

Israeli Settlements on Village Lands

The settlement of Sasa (Sasa’) was established in 1949, on the very site of the village.

Source: All That Remains by Walid Khalidi.