Julis, Gaza

Julis (Arabic: جولس) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Gaza Subdistrict, located 26.5 kilometers (16.5 mi) northeast of Gaza on a slight elevation along the southern coastal plain. In 1945, there were 1,030 inhabitants in the village. It was ethnically cleansed during the Nakba.

Julis was built on an archaeological site whose ancient name is unknown. Potsherds from the Mamluk era have been found in the village. The village had a Maqam (shrine) which was constructed with ancient materials.

Julis was inhabited in the 15th century. In 1472–1473 CE, Sultan Qaitbay endowed it for the benefit of his Jerusalem madrasa.

A branch of the Jaradat tribe, originating from Sa'ir, settled in Julis.

Julis was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with the rest of Palestine. In first Ottoman tax register of 1526/7 the village was unpopulated. By 1596 CE, however, the village had been refounded as part of the nahiya of Gaza, in the Liwa of Gaza. It consisted of 204 persons (37 households), all Muslims. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, fruit, beehives, vineyards and goats; a total of 10,400 akçe. 6,5/24 of the revenue went to a Waqf.

Marom and Taxel have shown that during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, nomadic economic and security pressures led to settlement abandonment around Majdal ‘Asqalān, and the southern coastal plain in general. The population of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, while the lands of abandoned settlements continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages. Thus, Julis absorbed the lands of Bardagha, mentioned separately as an inhabited village in the Ottoman tax registers of the 16th century.

In 1838, Julis was noted as a village in the District of Gaza.

In 1863 Victor Guérin found the village to be located on a hillock and containing five hundred inhabitants. It had a oualy, dedicated to Scheik Mohammed, was internally decorated with two fragments. Guérin further noted that "Several marble columns are laid across the mouth of the well, with furniture arranged around it."