Qastina
| Qastina | |
|---|---|
 Qastina
|
|
| Arabic | قسطينة |
| Name meaning | El Kustîneh, Kŭstîleh, i.e., Castellum |
| Also spelled | Kastina |
| Subdistrict | Gaza |
| Coordinates | 31°44′21″N 34°45′44″E / 31.73917°N 34.76222°ECoordinates: 31°44′21″N 34°45′44″E / 31.73917°N 34.76222°E |
| Palestine grid | 127/127 |
| Population | 890 (1945) |
| Area | 12,019 dunams |
| Date of depopulation | 9 July 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces |
| Secondary cause | Influence of nearby town's fall |
| Current localities | Kfar Warburg,Arugot,Kfar Ahim,Avigdor,Kiryat Malakhi |
Qastina (Arabic: قسطينة) was a Palestinian village, located 38 kilometers northeast of Gaza City. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Qastina was situated on an elevated spot in a generally flat area on the coastal plain, on the highway between al-Majdal and the Jerusalem-Jaffa highway. A British military camp, Beer Tuvia, was 3 km. southwest of the village.
Qastina was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with the rest of Palestine, and by 1596, it was a village in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Gaza under the liwa' (district) of Gaza, with a population of 385. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley and sesame, and fruits, as well as goats, beehives and vineyards.
The Syrian Sufi teacher and traveller Mustafa al-Bakri al-Siddiqi (1688-1748/9) reported travelling through the village in the first half of the eighteenth century, on his way to al-Masmiyya al-Kabira.
In 1838, Edward Robinson saw el-Kustineh located northwest of Tell es-Safi, where he was staying, while in 1863, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village, called Kasthineh. He found it had four hundred inhabitants. Near the mouth of a well were the remains of an antique gray-white marble column, while two palm trees and three acacia mimosas shaded the cemetery.
...
Wikipedia