In 1863,
Victor Guérin found here a
wali, devoted to a
Sheikh Amer, and this wali gave name to the neighbouring "ruin", which he described as "twenty small chambers, half of which have been collapsed and enclosed within the same enclosure: they were constructed with materials of all kinds and date from the Middle Ages." He also noted five
cisterns had been excavated from the rock, and appeared to be older. In 1883, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine found "ruined walls" at ''Khurbet Deir 'Amr.''
British Mandate era In the
1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, Dair Amr had a population of 5, all Muslims, while in the
1931 census, it was counted with
Suba, and together they had a population of 434 Muslims, in 110 houses.
Freya Stark recalled how she met with Ahmad Samih Khalidi, the principal of
Arab College (Jerusalem), and "
his charming Syrian wife" and inspected the orphanage which was built at Dayr 'Amr. The first £ 1,000 was collected among fourteen Arabs of Jerusalem, who started it in 1940. They built a school, a farm, and a directors house in "strong stone" at the top of a stony hill. The student learned agriculture, which they could use when they returned to their villages. In the
1945 statistics only 10 Muslims were recorded, while 2,404 dunams were non-cultivable land.
1948, aftermath In 1952, the buildings of the boys' farm were transformed into the Israeli mental hospital
Eitanim. File:Kasla 1943.jpg|Dayr 'Amr 1943 1:20,000 (bottom left) File:Yalu 1945.jpg|Dayr 'Amr 1945 1:250,000 File:Latroun (10 mai).png|Dayr 'Amr May 10 1948 File:Deir 'Amr orphanage 1948.jpg|Deir 'Amr orphanage after capture, 1948 File:Deir 'Amr 1948.jpg|Deir 'Amr orphanage July 1948 File:Deir ' Amr.jpg|Deir 'Amr orphanage occupied by the Harel Brigade File:Road to Deir 'Amr.jpg|Road to Deir 'Amr, July 1948 File:Etanim.jpg|Members of
Yiftach Brigade outside Dayr 'Amr. 1948 ==References==