Middle Ages Al-Ruways stood on the site of the
Crusader town of
Careblier, which was also referred to by the Crusaders as
Roeis. In 1220,
Beatrix de Courtenay and her husband Count
Otto von Botenlauben,
Henneberg, sold their land, including Roeis’, to the
Teutonic Knights. However, they appeared not to have sole ownership, as in 1253
John Aleman,
Lord of Caesarea, sold several villages, including Roeis, to the
Knights Hospitaller. In 1266, a Crusader vanguard returning from a raid in
Tiberias to Acre was ambushed at Roeis by
Mamluk forces based in
Safad. In 1283 it was mentioned as part of the domain of the Crusaders in the
hudna (truce) between the Acre-based Crusaders and the Mamluk sultan
al-Mansur Qalawun. Based on tradition, the people of the village professed to have blood relations with
Husam ad-Din Abu al-Hija. Hussam ad-Din was a high-ranking officer in the
Ayyubid army of Sultan
Saladin.
Ottoman era French explorer
Victor Guérin visited al-Ruways in 1875, and noted that the village contained "150 people at most, whose homes are located on a hill, amid gardens filled with fig, pomegranate and olive trees, and here and there are palm trees". In 1881, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine described al-Ruways as being situated on open ground with olive groves to the north of the village. Its population of 400 was entirely
Muslim. A population list from about 1887 showed that
Ruweis had about 190 inhabitants; all Muslims.
British Mandate era Under the
British Mandate of Palestine in the early twentieth century, al-Ruways was one of the smallest villages in the
District of Acre. In the
1922 census Al-Ruways had a population of 154; all Muslims, increasing in the
1931 census to 217, still all Muslim, in a total of 44 houses. and consisting of two quarters. The village had a
mosque. Its children attended school in nearby
al-Damun. The inhabitants' drinking water came from domestic wells, and they primarily grew wheat, corn, sesame, watermelons, and olives. while built-up areas consisted of 15 dunams.
Israeli rule On 18 July 1948, two days after
Nazareth was occupied by
Israel's
Seventh Armored Brigade in
Operation Dekel, some units advanced into the Western Galilee and captured a number of Arab villages, one of which was al-Ruways. The inhabitants fled after bombardment and the fall of major towns in the vicinity, namely
Shefa-'Amr and Nazareth. Following the war the area was incorporated into the
State of Israel. According to Palestinian historian
Walid Khalidi, "the site is deserted. The debris of old wells and cement roofs is strewn of over the site, which is otherwise covered by a forest of eucalyptus trees and cactus." By 1992 there were no villages on al-Ruways land, but the surrounding area was cultivated by residents of
kibbutz Yas'ur. ==See also==