Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya

Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya
Arabic	السوافير الشرقية
Name meaning	The eastern nomads.
Also spelled	Suafir Abu Huwar; from an inhabitant who died in the 19th century
Subdistrict	Gaza
Palestine grid	122/123
Population	970 (1945)
Area	13,831 dunams
Date of depopulation	May 18, 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Fear of being caught up in the fighting
Current localities	'En Tzurim,Shafir,Zerachya,Nir Banim

Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya was a Palestinian Arab village in the Gaza Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 War on May 18, 1948, as part of the second stage of Operation Barak. The village was located 32 km northeast of Gaza.

Remains from the late Roman (third–fourth centuries CE), Byzantine (fifth–beginning of seventh centuries CE), and Abbasid eras have been found here.Columns and fragments were noted near the well.

Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya was like the rest of Palestine, incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596, the village appeared as Sawafir as-Sarqi under the administration of the nahiya of Gaza, part of the Liwa of Gaza. The place was noted as hali, that is empty, but taxes were paid on wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees and cotton; a total of 9,000 akçe.

In 1863 Victor Guérin found it to be the largest of the three Sawafir villages.

In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it as one of three Suafir adobe villages. Each had small gardens and wells.

According to the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya had a population of 588 inhabitants, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to an all-Muslim population of 787 in 148 houses.

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