Mughallis

The village of Mughallis stood atop an elongated hill stretching from east to west, surrounded by a shallow valley. The village overlooked the expanse of the coastal plain to the west and faced the broad mountain range of Jerusalem to the east. A nearby secondary road, once a route for caravans between Bayt Jibrin and al-Ramla, connected these two centers in earlier times.

In the year 1596, Mughallis was recorded as a village in the Gaza subdistrict (nahiya) of the Gaza district (liwa’), with a population of 420 inhabitants. The village paid taxes on a variety of crops, including wheat, barley, and fruits, in addition to other sources of production such as goats and beehives.

Residents of neighboring villages would visit Mughallis to collect water from a well which was believed to have the property of dissolving kidney stones.

The village’s inhabitants, all Muslims, primarily relied on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihood, especially the cultivation of grains. They also farmed vegetables and fruits. In the agricultural year 1944/1945, a total of 7,277 dunums were allocated to the cultivation of grains, and 88 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 55 dunums were planted with olive trees.

In addition to the main village, which itself was built on an archaeological site, there were two other historical locations in the vicinity: Khirbat Ghallus and Khirbat Samra, both containing archaeological artifacts.

The Village Today

The site of the village and the surrounding area have been leveled. Most of the houses were razed to the ground, though remnants of some buildings remain visible. The ruins of one house on the eastern side still display traces of the garden boundary walls that once surrounded it. Various trees—including carob and olive—now grow throughout the area, and cactus plants are found on both the northern and southern edges of the site.

Israeli Settlements on Village Lands

In 1955, the Israeli settlement of Gefen was established on the lands of the village, to the north of the original village site.