Deir Yassin
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Deir Yassin today, part of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center
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 Deir Yassin
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| Arabic | دير ياسين |
| Name meaning | "Monastery of [Sheikh] Yassin" |
| Also spelled | Dayr Yasin |
| Subdistrict | Jerusalem |
| Coordinates | 31°47′9″N 35°10′41″E / 31.78583°N 35.17806°ECoordinates: 31°47′9″N 35°10′41″E / 31.78583°N 35.17806°E |
| Palestine grid | 167/132 |
| Population | 610 (1945) |
| Area | 2,857 dunams 2.6 km² |
| Date of depopulation | April 9–10, 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces |
| Secondary cause | Expulsion by Yishuv forces |
| Current localities | Givat Shaul Beth and Har Nof neighborhoods of Jerusalem |
Deir Yassin (Arabic: دير ياسين, Dayr Yāsīn) was a Palestinian Arab village of around 600 inhabitants about 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) west of Jerusalem. Deir Yassin declared its neutrality during the 1948 Palestine war between Arabs and Jews. The village was razed after a massacre of around 107 of its residents on April 9, 1948, by the Jewish paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi. The village buildings are today part of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center, an Israeli public psychiatric hospital.
The first part of the village's name Deir is defined as "monastery" in Arabic. According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, this was a common occurrence in Palestinian village names especially those so close to Jerusalem. A large ruin that lay at the southwestern edge of Deir Yassin was known simply as "Deir".
Deir Yassin has been identified as one of the villages given as a fief to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the 12th century, and it has been suggested that a vaulted building in the center of the village could have been of Crusader or Mamluk origin.
During the Ottoman era, which began in 1517, the nucleus of settlement activity in the area was Khirbet Ayn al-Tut ("The Ruin of the Mulberry Spring")—some 500 meters (1,600 ft) west of the 1948 village site. In 1596, this village was under the administration of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jerusalem, part of the sanjak (district) of Jerusalem. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, and olive trees.
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