Roman to Crusader periods Simsim contained two archaeological sites known locally as ar-Ras and Sha'fat al-Mughur (the latter of which contained a
Roman cemetery). The village was known as
Semsem to the
Crusaders. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the area of Simsim 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.
19th century In 1838, Simsim was noted as was a Muslim village in the Gaza District. In
A Handbook for Travellers in Syria and Palestine (1858),
Josias Leslie Porter describes the village as standing "amidst a little grove of trees, about a 1/4 mile north of the road." In June 1863
Victor Guérin found the village to contains five hundred inhabitants. Surrounded by trees, the village had tobacco and sesame plantations. A
oualy, dedicated to
Neby Danyal, was internally decorated with two ancient columns. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 indicated 69 houses and a population of 119, though the population count included only men. In 1883, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine described Simsim as being surrounded by gardens. It had a
well, a pool, and an olive grove that was planted to the north.
Karl Baedeker and his travelling companions writing in 1894 are more specific, noting that the village is located in an
olive grove and that tobacco and
sesame are the principal crops grown there.
British Mandate In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities,
Semsem had a population of 760 inhabitants, all Muslims, increasing in the
1931 census, when
Sumsum had a population of 855 Muslims in 195 houses. In 1942, the
kibbutz of
Gvar'am was established on land traditionally belonging to the village. while 44 dunams were built-up areas.
1948 war and destruction During the
1948 Arab–Israeli War the villagers of Simsim, together with the surrounding villages, were driven out by soldiers from the
Negev Brigade on 12–13 May 1948 as part of
Operation Barak. In Simsim the occupying troops found only a handful of old people. They blew up five houses and warned that if the village's weapons were not handed over the following day, they would blow up the rest. But the inhabitants repeatedly returned to the village, either to resettle or to cultivate crops. At the end of May, a Negev Brigade unit, with orders to expel "the Arabs from Sumsum and
Burayr and burn their granaries and fields", swept through the villages, encountering resistance in Sumsum, and killed "5" (or, according to another report, "20") and blew up granaries and a well. Historian
Saleh Abdel Jawad writes that a massacre occurred in the village on 13 May. The Israeli troops returned to Simsim yet again, on 9 or 10 June 1948, again burning houses and skirmishing with Arabs.
Or HaNer, established in 1957, lie less than one km south of the village site, on land formerly belonging to
Najd, Gaza. In 1992, the village's remains were described by
Walid Khalidi: "The village has been obliterated and can only be recognised from the cypress and sycamore trees that still remain. A pile of stones that may be the debris of a village building is visible. The site is fenced in and serves as a pasture. The land in the vicinity are cultivated by Israeli farmers." ==People from Simsim==