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30-667: Two versions: Before 1948, maps of the area drawn by the Survey of Palestine team tagged it as Karam es Sila. The name indicates it was a karam (grape field) belonging to the Sala (שלה might be originally סלע or سلع) family or the grape field near stone quarries. Before the 1947–1949 Arab-Israeli war , the area in the north was known by the Arabs as Sheikh Badr . In December 1949, the Israeli government, headed by David Ben-Gurion , passed

60-678: A few months later. On 1 January 1931 a purpose-built building was opened to house the department at the southern end of a 30-acre (12 ha) plot near the German Templar colony on the outskirts of Tel Aviv (the location can be seen on this 1930 map ). The location of the headquarters in the coastal plain favored for Zionist settlement, together with the fact that all other offices of the Mandate Government were in Jerusalem, have been said to emphasize "the strong link between

90-574: A land-owner can apply for an authoritative registration of title on a modern survey, but if there is a dispute, this has to be settled by the Land Court, a much slower, more expensive and laborious proceeding than an investigation and judgment by a Settlement Officer. The Mandate government laws regulated and empowered surveying, surveyors, and survey fees. The first headquarters – in early 1920 – were based in Gaza City ; they moved to Jaffa just

120-758: A large salvage excavation was conducted in April–September 1992 on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority , but roughly 60% of the parking lot area had already been dug up by bulldozers. In July 1993, a small excavation in the northwestern corner dismantled kilns of the Tenth Legion and lifted a mosaic floor of the Byzantine period. 31°47′N 35°12′E  /  31.78°N 35.20°E  / 31.78; 35.20 Survey of Palestine The Survey of Palestine

150-513: A piece of land in Palestine was a very vague document. There was no survey, recording shape, area or position; the description was usually, to say the least of it, ambiguous, and the extent which was the gauge for taxation, was almost invariably falsified to save the pocket of the owner. Big blocks were, and in areas where there has been no land settlement, still are, shared by large numbers of owners who have no defined boundaries and who often alter

180-713: A refugee, fleeing to the Gaza Strip following the 1948 Palestinian expulsion during the 1948 Palestine war . He later attended and graduated from al-Saidiya secondary school in Cairo , Egypt , ranking first in Egypt. After graduating from Cairo University 's Faculty of Engineering in 1958, Abu Sitta went to the United Kingdom to continue his post-graduate studies, receiving his PhD in Civil Engineering from

210-519: A region northeast of the Gaza District, and the southern part of the Beersheba sub-District, sale of land by a Palestinian Arab was forbidden except to a Palestinian Arab with similar exceptions. In the "free zone," which consisted of Haifa Bay, the coastal plain from Zikhron Ya'akov to Yibna , and the neighborhood of Jerusalem, there were no restrictions. The reason given for the regulations

240-499: A resolution to build a government precinct in Jerusalem. Givat Ram, a hill in the west of the city, which had been an assembly point for the Gadna Youth Battalions , was chosen for this purpose. The topography of the site was made up of three ridges, meshed with the idea of establishing three clusters of buildings – the government precinct, a university campus and a museum. The Knesset, Israeli government offices, and

270-598: A starting base for technological start-up companies. The first salvage excavation was conducted before Binyanei HaUma was built, in July- August 1949, by M. Avi-Yonah , who unearthed hewn installations, cisterns and pools of various sizes dating to the Herodian period, bricks and tiles bearing stamps of the Tenth Roman Legion , and the remains of a monastery. In May–June 1968, before a new hotel (then

300-617: Is officially known as Kiryat HaLeom . A new apartment project, Mishkenot Ha’uma, is being built in this area. The Wohl Rose Garden is also located in the neighborhood. The Givat Ram High-Tech Village was established jointly by the Jerusalem Development Authority and the Hebrew University. It is one of the first high tech parks in Israel built in proximity to centers of academic research. It provides

330-573: Is sacred to Palestinians, legal under international law and possible without major dislocation to the Jewish settlers in Palestine. His work also includes the compendium Atlas of Palestine 1917-1966 . After the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October Abu Sitta wrote on the American news website Mondoweiss about the "determination and courage of those young people" referring to those who executed

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360-678: Is the founder and President of Palestine Land Society in London, dedicated to the documentation of Palestine’s land and People. He is most known for mapping Palestine and developing a practical plan for implementing the right of return of Palestinian refugees . Salman Abu Sitta was born in 1937 into a Palestinian family. His family's land and the village bore their name, Ma'in Abu Sitta (the Abu Sitta springwell), in Beer Sheba District of Mandatory Palestine . In 1948 he became

390-588: The Survey of Israel . The maps produced by the survey have been widely used in "Palestinian refugee cartography" by scholars documenting the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight ; notably in Salman Abu Sitta 's Atlas of Palestine and Walid Khalidi 's All That Remains . In 2019 the maps were used as the basis for Palestine Open Maps , supported by the Bassel Khartabil Free Culture Fellowship. Prior to

420-780: The University of London , UCL . He was a member of the Palestine National Council . He studied refugee affairs and authored over 400 papers on the subject. He directed international development and construction projects. He was the founder and President of the Palestine Land Society (PLS) He was the General Coordinator of the Right of Return Congress. Abu Sitta engaged in debates with Israelis who professed interest in peace without

450-700: The hill-country of Judea as a whole, certain areas in the Jaffa sub-District, and in the Gaza District , and the northern part of the Beersheba sub-District, new agreements for sale of land other than to a Palestinian Arab were forbidden without the High Commissioner's permission. In Zone "B," which included the Jezreel Valley , eastern Galilee, a parcel of coastal plain south of Haifa ,

480-487: The Hilton) was built south of Binyanei HaUma, Avi-Yonah conducted a second salvage excavation. He found remains of an oval-shaped potter's kiln, a preparation area for clay, and a deep water cistern. The area had been covered by a thick layer of plaster upon which were found large mortaria and many bricks, some bearing stamps of the Tenth Legion. During the work on a new international convention center east of Binyanei HaUma,

510-845: The Israeli Supreme Court are located in Givat Ram, as are cultural landmarks such as the Israel Museum, the Bible Lands Museum, the Bloomfield Science Museum , a campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the National Library of Israel , and Binyanei HaUma - The National Convention Center. The northern part of the neighborhood, between the convention center and the university, where the government ministries are clustered,

540-681: The PEF maps overprinted with revisions, and local maps, usually in the scale of 1:40,000. Immediately following the start of the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration , the Zionist Organization began to pressure the British authorities to immediately begin the cadastral survey of the land , to facilitate Jewish land purchase in Palestine . The Zionist Organization wanted to use the results of

570-662: The beginning of the Mandate for Palestine , the British had carried out two significant surveys of the region: the PEF Survey of Palestine between 1872 and 1880, and a series of small-scale maps developed by General Allenby 's Royal Engineers for the 1915–18 Sinai and Palestine campaign . The Geographical Section of the War Office (G.S.G.S.), together with the Survey of Egypt , produced regional maps extending to Syria and Transjordan (scales 1:125,000, 1:250,000), copies of

600-519: The cadastral survey of Palestine and Zionist motives". Proposals to move the office to Jerusalem were raised in 1925, 1928 and 1935, but to no avail. Salman Abu Sitta Salman Abu Sitta ( Arabic : سلمان ابو ستة ; born 1937) is a Palestinian researcher. Abu Sitta, who was expelled from Palestine as a child in 1948 , has dedicated his life to the Palestinian cause and is engaged in public debates with Israeli peace activists. Abu Sitta

630-926: The country except the southern Negev , although it had confirmed land title in less than 20% of the country, specifically in the areas of Jewish settlement. A cadastral survey was not carried out in the areas which would become the West Bank until after 1948; a situation which caused significant challenges in subsequent years. The department grew significantly throughout the mandate period: it began with 46 professionals in 1921, of which 25 were recruited from outside Palestine, and by 1942 had 215 professionals, with only 11 recruited from outside Palestine. The Survey of Palestine printed 1,800 maps and plans in 1926, 19,000 in 1929, 64,000 in 1933 and 100,000 in 1939. There were two schools for training Palestinian and Arab surveyors, one in Jenin that operated for one year starting 1942, and

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660-577: The historical maps are held at the Survey of Israel , the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Israeli Ministry of Defense archives. In 1937, then Commissioner of Lands and Surveys, Lieutenant Colonel F. J. Salmon, described the importance of the department's work with respect to allowing land purchases: In the Ottoman days, a title to

690-671: The other in Nazareth that opened in 1944. In early 1948, temporary Directors General of the Survey Department were appointed for each of the proposed "Jewish State" and "Arab State" under the terms of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine , and the pre-existing files and maps were to be shared. However, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , British lorries delivering the "Arab state" portion of their maps were diverted back to Tel Aviv . Today,

720-469: The position of their plots from year to year… To purchase land from a title owner, or worse still, from an occupier who had no title, was a very uncertain business, and often still is. The difficulty, however, is now being solved, though very slowly, by Land Settlement… The claims are recorded and examined by Palestinian Assistant Settlement Officers, while cases of dispute are heard by British Land Settlement Officers… Even in areas that are not under Settlement,

750-498: The return of the refugees, including Uri Avnery and Rabbi Michael Lerner . Abu Sitta spent 40 years digging for information related to Palestine before, during and after al Nakba , the destruction of Palestine. Abu Sitta's work ensured that "the memories and identity of the occupied homeland are never lost". He is regarded by Uri Avnery as perhaps 'the world's foremost expert on the Nakba'. The documentation process began when he

780-679: The survey work to identify land open for Jewish settlement and the strategies needed to acquire it, whether it was privately owned, state land or other types of land. The Survey was initially resisted by the Palestinian Arab population, who considered it to be an attempt to sell their land from underneath them, given the differences between Ottoman land laws , customary land law and the new system which required "absolute proof of ownership". The national triangulation framework had been completed by 1930, consisting of 105 major points and c. 20,000 lower-order points. The 1:10,000 survey

810-458: Was 30 years old, when he stumbled on the memoirs of the Turkish chief of Beersheba , when Palestine was under Ottoman rule. The document dated to the early twentieth century. "It sort of started from there, and it has never stopped," Abu Sitta says. "I kept collecting all and any material on every inch of my homeland." Abu Sitta's claimed to show that the return of the refugees to their homes

840-496: Was completed in 1934, followed by the 1:2,500 property survey for Land Settlement; these surveys formed the basis for the published 1:20,000 and 1:100,000 topographical series. In 1940 the department no longer had responsibility for adjudicating land settlement claims, and began to focus fully on the survey work. The February 1940 Land Transfer Regulations had divided Palestine into three regions with different restrictions on land sales applying to each. In Zone "A," which included

870-556: Was that the Mandatory was required to "ensur[e] that the rights and positions of other sections of the population are not prejudiced," and an assertion that "such transfers of land must be restricted if Arab cultivators are to maintain their existing standard of life and a considerable landless Arab population is not soon to be created" By the 1947–1949 Palestine war , the Survey of Palestine had finalized topographical maps for all of

900-588: Was the government department responsible for the survey and mapping of Palestine during the British mandate period . The survey department was established in 1920 in Jaffa , and moved to the outskirts of Tel Aviv in 1931. It established the Palestine grid . In early 1948, the British Mandate appointed a temporary Director General of the Survey Department for the impending Jewish State; this became

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