WikiMini

Khushniyeh

Khushniyeh
الخشنية
Village
View of Khushniyah before its destruction in 1967
View of Khushniyah before its destruction in 1967
Khushniyeh is located in the Golan Heights
Khushniyeh
Khushniyeh
The Golan on the map of Syria; Khishniyah on the map of the Golan.
Coordinates: 32°59′56″N 35°48′40″E / 32.99889°N 35.81111°E / 32.99889; 35.81111
Grid position226/267 PAL
CountrySyria
Syrian GovernorateQuneitra Governorate
Syrian DistrictQuneitra District
Syrian Subdistrictal-Khisniyah
DestroyedJune 10, 1967
Population
 (1967)
 • Total
1,029[1][2]

Khushniyeh (Arabic: الخشنية), called Khishniyyeh (Хъышние къуажэ, "Khishniyyeh village") by its Circassian inhabitants,[need quotation to verify] is a former Syrian town located in the Golan Heights.[3][4]

History

[edit]

Archaeological excavations have revealed remains from the Roman, Byzantine, and the Muslim periods which followed the Muslim conquest of the Levant.[5]

The German-American, Palestine-based archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher surveyed the village in the 1880s and described it as: "El-Khushniyeh — A large winter village on the Roman street west of er-Rafid, with scattered building stones. Most of the huts have fallen to pieces."[6]

The old part of town was built with basalt stones.[5] The residents worked with livestock and agriculture and Khushniyah was known for its vineyards and figs.[5] Eucalyptus trees were planted in the town to fight off malaria.[5][7] There were also several schools, a police station and a mosque built in 1956.[5]

The population before the Six-Day War was 1029[1] or 1600.[8] Previous to the 1967 war, Khishniyyah was inhabited by Circassians and related tribes, as one of ten villages and a town, Quneitra, settled in the Golan by these ethnic groups originating in the Northwest Caucasus.[4] The village population comprised 43 Kabardian and Besleney families, 17 Abzakh, 6 Bzhedugh, 10 Abaza, and one Shapsugh family.[4] The Golan Circassians constituted the largest concentration of Caucasians in Syria.[4] Most Circassian refugees from the Golan resettled in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and in Aleppo, with some emigrating to Central and Western Europe (Germany, Holland, Austria, France) and North America (US and Canada).[4]

After Israel occupied the area in the 1967 war, they set about destroying Syrian villages in the Golan Heights.[9][10] Khushniyeh village was destroyed in 1967.[1]

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the IDF presence at Khushniyeh was overrun by Syrian tanks and the Syrians held the position until being encircled and defeated by an Israeli force[11] (see Yom Kippur War: Golan front).

The 1973 Syrian military camp was used as a temporary home by the founders of Moshav Keshet, an Israeli settlement established in 1974 south of Quneitra.[8]

The site is known in Israel as Hushniya[11] or Hurvat Hushniya, 'Hushniya Ruins'.[4]

Gallery: Khushniyeh after destruction

[edit]

See also

[edit]
[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c "Booklet accompanying the "Jawlan villages map"" (PDF). Al-Marsad - Arab Human Rights Center in Golan Heights. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  2. ^ Kipnis, Yigal (2013). The Golan Heights: Political History, Settlement and Geography since 1949. London and New York: Routledge. p. 245. ISBN 978-1-136-74092-3.
  3. ^ Central Intelligence Agency (1994). "Golan Heights and vicinity: October 1994". The Library of Congress. Retrieved 2024-08-31. Map showing Al Khushniyah as an abandoned/dismantled Syrian village.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "The Circassian Village of Khishniyyah in the Golan Heights: A Brief Account". Circassian Culture and Folklore. 12 August 2013. Retrieved 6 August 2025 – via Facebook. The online page is an expansion of the book by Amjad M. Jaimoukha (2010), Circassian Culture and Folklore: Hospitality, Traditions, Cuisine, Festivals and Music (Kabardian, Cherkess, Adigean, Shapsugh and Diaspora), Bennett & Bloom, London, ISBN 1898948402, books.google.com/books?id=cOyVZwEACAAJ.
  5. ^ a b c d e "بلدة الخشنية" [The town of Al-Khushniya]. General Organization of Radio and TV - Syria (in Arabic). 2022-09-27. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
  6. ^ Schumacher, Gottlieb (1888). The Jaulân: Surveyed for the German Society for the Exploration of the Holy Land. London: Richard Bentley and Son. p. 194. Retrieved 2024-09-01.
  7. ^ "Treating the vector - Management of malaria - Higher Geography Revision". BBC Bitesize. Retrieved 2024-12-28.
  8. ^ a b Gilad, Moshe (31 May 2017). "The Forgotten Syrian Secrets of the Golan Heights". Haaretz. Retrieved 6 August 2025.
  9. ^ Shai, Aron (2006). "The Fate of Abandoned Arab Villages in Israel, 1965-1969". History and Memory. 18 (2): 86-106 [100–101]. doi:10.2979/his.2006.18.2.86. Also at doi.org/10.1353/ham.2007.0007
  10. ^ Sulimani & Kletter 2022, pp. 55–56
  11. ^ a b McCulloch, Oakland (2003). The Decisiveness of Israeli Small-Unit Leadership on the Golan Heights in the 1973 Yom Kippur War (Master of Military Art and Science thesis). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: United States Army Command and General Staff College. pp. 26, 27, 38, 44, 53, 59. Retrieved 8 August 2025. Also published by Biblioscholar in 2012, ISBN 1249406137.

Bibliography

[edit]
  • Sulimani, Gideon; Kletter, Raz (2022). "Settler-Colonialism and the Diary of an Israeli Settler in the Golan Heights: The Notebooks of Izhaki Gal". Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies. 21 (1). Edinburgh University Press: 48–71. doi:10.3366/hlps.2022.0283. ISSN 2054-1988.
Stub icon

This Syria location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.