Bnei Darom was established in 1949 by members of the
gar'in group
Netivot Kfar Darom who had been forced out of Kibbutz
Kfar Darom in the
Gaza Strip when it was occupied by the
Egyptian Army during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War. They were joined by another gar'in group,
Morasha from the
United States, though most of its members were not prepared for the kibbutz-style life in a
moshav shitufi and left, some of them to form
Beit Hazon. Originally affiliated with
Hapoel HaMizrachi, it joined the
Religious Kibbutz Movement as a moshav shitufi in 2007. According to
Walid Khalidi, Bnei Darom was founded on land belonging to
Isdud. However, according to Andrew Petersen, it was on land belonging to the depopulated
Palestinian village of
Arab Suqrir, with the remains of a
khan located in a wooded park next to the modern water tower.
Clermont-Ganneau visited the place in 1873, and gave a very similar description, with the addition: "this must have been the site of some ancient "manzel", or posting-house, on the Arab route from
Syria to
Egypt. The site was registered as "an ancient monument" during the
Mandate era, although the owners were permitted to build a reservoir 20m square within the khan. Petersen, inspecting the place in 1994, found it in much the same condition as during the Mandate period, except that the reservoir had been replaced with a water-tower. Petersen described the remains as comprising a nearly 40m long wall, running north-south, with an entrance near the north end. A
barrel-vaulted chamber, with an interior measuring 8.3m long and 3.8m wide, is located inside the khan, just south of the entrance. In 2002 excavations in the moshav found major remains from the
Mamluk period. ==References==