Malha

Maliha
Arabic	المالحه
Name meaning	The salt-pan
Subdistrict	Jerusalem
Palestine grid	167/129
Population	1,940 (1948)
Area	13,449 Arab owned dunams
Date of depopulation	21 April 1948, 15 July 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Influence of nearby town's fall
Secondary cause	Military assault by Yishuv forces

Malha is a neighborhood in southwest Jerusalem, between Pat, Ramat Denya and Kiryat Hayovel in the Valley of Rephaim. Before 1948, Malha was a Palestinian Arab village known as al-Maliha (Arabic: المالحه‎‎). .

Excavations in Malha revealed Intermediate Bronze Age domestic structures. A dig in the Rephaim Valley carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the region of the Malha shopping mall and Biblical Zoo uncovered a village dating back to the Middle Bronze Age II B (1,700 – 1,800 BCE). Beneath this, remains of an earlier village were found from the Early Bronze Age IV (2,200 – 2,100 BCE).

According to the archaeologists who excavated there in 1987-1990, Malha is believed to be the site of Manahat, a Canaanite town on the northern border of the Tribe of Judah (Joshua 15:59). Remains of the village have been preserved at the Biblical Zoo.

In 1596, al-Maliha was part of the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Jerusalem under the Liwa of Jerusalem, with a population of 286. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, and olive and fruit trees, goats and beehives.

An Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed Malha with a population of 340, in 75 houses, though the population count included men, only.

In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village as being of moderate size, standing high on a flat ridge. To the south was Ayn Yalu.

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Malhah had a population 1,038, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 1,410; 1,402 Muslims and 8 Christians, in a total of 299 houses.

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