Sar'a
| Sar'a | |
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Neby Samit, picture taken between 1900 and 1920
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 Sar'a
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| Arabic | صرعة |
| Name meaning | from Zoreah |
| Also spelled | Surah |
| Subdistrict | Jerusalem |
| Coordinates | 31°46′41″N 34°59′10″E / 31.77806°N 34.98611°ECoordinates: 31°46′41″N 34°59′10″E / 31.77806°N 34.98611°E |
| Palestine grid | 148/131 |
| Population | 340 (1945) |
| Area | 4,967 dunams |
| Date of depopulation | July 18, 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces |
| Current localities | Tarum |
Sar'a (Arabic: صرعة), was a Palestinian Arab village located 25 km west of Jerusalem, depopulated in the 1948 war.
The Canaanites referred to Sar'a by the name of Sur'a or Zorah, mentioned in the Amarna letters, subsequently it was a Danite place, while the Romans called it Sarea. Sar'a had two shrines, one of which is still standing. The first belongs to al-Nabi Samat, and the other for an unknown individual. The village also has several khirbas including Khirbat al-Tahuna, where the ruins of a building constructed of ashlars (squared stone masonry) and the foundations of other buildings.
Incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with the rest of Palestine, Saris appears in the 1596 tax records as a village in the nahiya (subdistrict) of al-Ramla under the liwa' (district) of Gaza with a population of 94. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, olives, goats and beehives.
In 1838 Edward Robinson reported that the village belonged to the "Keis" faction, together with Laham Sheiks, of Bayt 'Itab.
In 1863 Victor Guérin found it to be a village with some three hundred inhabitants. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 indicated 21 houses and a population of 59, though the population count included only men.
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