While surveying for the construction of the Jezreel Valley railway, Gottlieb Schumacher noted in 1900 that Lid was a "flourishing village" of 46 huts and 200 inhabitants, built up by the Bedouin of the Merj.[7]
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, the tribal area of Al Awadein had a population of 402 Muslims,[8] increasing in the 1931 census to 451, in 87 houses.[9] In the 1945 statistics it had a population of 640 Muslims,[3] and the total area was 13,572 dunams.[4] Of the land, 103 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 13,063 for cereals,[10] and 52 were built-up (urban) areas.[11]
In addition to agriculture, residents practiced animal husbandry, an important source of income for the town. In 1943, they owned 480 heads of cattle, 612 sheep over a year old, 125 goats over a year old, 36 camels, 16 horses, 39 donkeys, 2890 birds, and 650 pigs.[12]
1948 and aftermath
A Jewish force infiltrated Lid on the evening of 26 February 1948, in the early weeks of the war. According to an account of the raid published in the Palestinian daily Filastin, villagers fired heavily on the attackers, driving them back after a brief skirmish. No casualties were reported. While no explicit account of the occupation of Lid is available, it is possible that, given its location, it may have been one of the villages captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Mishmar ha-Emeq. All the villages occupied during the operation were almost immediately destroyed by the Jewish forces as part of the Nakba. A remoter possibility is that it was occupied during the Israeli army's Operation Dekel.[13]
After the war the area was incorporated into the State of Israel. The moshav of HaYogev was established in 1949, west of the village site and partly on village land.[5]
In 1992 the village site was described as "Piles of stones, scattered across the ground near several large eucalyptus and olive trees, are all that remain of the village. There is a newly-built structure over the village well."[5]
References
^ abMorris, 2004, p. xviii, village #385. Gives cause of depopulation and date as "Not known"
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