Byzantine ceramics have been found here. In the 12th century, a castle called
Galatie was built on the village site by the
Crusaders, it was subsequently captured by the
Ayyubids under
Saladin in 1187, and destroyed in September 1191. , with decorations The place called
Kulat el Fenish by the village was apparently once a church. The remains were seen in 1875: "The tower on the mound is called Kulat el Fenish. It is a solid block of masonry, standing some 20 or 30 feet in height. Near it lie shafts and bases of white marble, and an elaborate
cornice, well and deeply cut. There is also a
font, like that at
Beit 'Auwa (Sheet XXI.), formed by four intersecting circles, and measuring 37 feet along the diameter, and 2 feet high." In 1226,
Arab geographer
Yaqut al-Hamawi writes of the village under Ayyubid rule as "Karatayya" as "a town near
Bait Jibrin, in the
Province of Filastin. It belongs to
Jerusalem." The
Mamluk sultan
al-Nasir ibn Qalawun camped in Karatayya in 1299 on his way to fight the
Mongols. 14th-century Arab geographer
Al-Dimashqi reports that at times it was a part of Mamlakat Ghazzah ("Kingdom of Gaza").
Ottoman era Karatiyya was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire in 1517 with the rest of
Palestine, and by the 1596
tax records it was named
Karta, a village in the
nahiya of Gaza, part of
Sanjak of Gaza. It had a population of 46
Muslim households, an estimated 253 persons. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, fruit, vineyards, beehives, and goats; a total of 5,830
akçe. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the area of Karatiyya experienced a significant process of settlement decline due to
nomadic pressures on local communities. The residents of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, but the land continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages. In 1838
Edward Robinson noted it as
Kuratiyeh, a Muslim village in the Gaza district. He further noted a ruined tower of "modern" date, built partly of (
adobe) bricks; and a few ancient
columns lying about. In 1863
Victor Guérin found it to be a small village with many houses demolished. To the north of this hamlet, on a nearby hill, were huge sections of walls and the remains of a square tower, three-quarters destroyed, called "El-Kala'", or "the Castle". South of the village was a , decorated with two ancient grey-white marble columns. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 indicated 73 houses and a population of 196, though the population count included men, only. In the 19th century, a ruined tower stood atop a mound just outside the village which was built in an open plain. increasing in the
1931 census to 932, still all Muslims, in 229 houses. In the
1945 statistics Karatiyya had a population of 1,370 Muslims, while 48 dunams were built-up land.
1948 War, and aftermath As a part of a new policy the
Haganah blew up a house in Karatiyya on the night of December 9, 1947, the orders to the
Givati Brigade who executed the order had been for "two houses". Karatiyya was captured by the
Israeli Army's
89th Mechanized Battalion, commander
Moshe Dayan, on July 18, 1948, as part of
Operation Death to the Invader. Its inhabitants fled upon their arrival, according to Dayan. According to
Benny Morris, the village "was harassed by machine-gun fire and abandoned by its inhabitants". Israeli forces intended to link their northern territory with that held by Israeli forces in the
Negev, but succeeded only partially, only taking control of
Hatta and Karatiyya. After it was stormed by Dayan's troops he controversially withdrew them leaving a Givati infantry company to hold the position. A fierce battle ensued between them and the
Egyptian Army who got as far as the village outskirts. When two Egyptian tanks were on the verge of breaking the Israeli defenses from the south, a unit hiding behind a wall of prickly pear cacti, armed with anti-tank weapons "changed the course of the battle", according to
Haganah accounts. Three villages were eventually founded on village land;
Komemiyut in 1950 and
Revaha in 1953, close to the village site.
Nehora, established in 1956, is partly on village land, and partly on land belonging to
al-Faluja. ==See also==