Info
District: Jaffa
Population 1948: 1280
Occupation date: 28/04/1948
Occupying unit: Kiriati & Carmeli & Alexandroni
Jewish settlements on village/town land before 1948: None
Jewish settlements on village/town land after 1948: Ramat Pinkas
Background:
The village was situated on uneven terrain on the central coastal plain, 8.5 km east of Jaffa. A number of paved roads passing through or near the village afforded it easy access to Jaffa, Lydda, Tel Aviv, and adjacent villages as well.
According to Israeli sources, the village was attacked and captured on 25 April 1948; a Palestinian source and an Associated Press dispatch both state that it fell a couple of days later, on 27-28 April, along with al-Khayriyya and Kafr 'Ana. In either case, it was one of the villages targeted during Operation Chametz. The History of the Haganah states that Saqiya and neighboring villages were all taken “without a fight”. No mention is made of their residents.
The settlement of Or Yehuda was established in village lands in 1950 to settle Jews from Irak and North Africa. Ramat Pinqas was built in 1952 on land belonging to the neighboring village of al-Khayriyya.
No more than ten houses remain. Some are inhabited by Jewish families, one is used as a workshop for car repair, and others are deserted. One of the occupied houses has a large front door and a garret with a slanted roof extending along the short. A second hosue is quite long and has a large number of wondows of various sizes. A third is a two-storey house whose second floor is fronted by a facade decorated with wide lancet arches. In addition to the houses, there are truncated walls, the mud-brich foundation of a destroyed building, and other debris on the site. There are also cactuses and sycamore, cypress, Christ's-thorn, and palm trees. Part of the surrounding land is cultivated; the rest is covered by settlement buildings.
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