"Benei Beraq", ʿĀdel az-Zawaty, a Paper Clipping

Handwritten in Arabic, this paper clipping documents the name of "Benei Beraq", a colony established on the depopulated village of al-Khayriyya; known as Ibn Barq during the Ottoman Rule, and in 1596 the village was related to Gaza and had a census of 145. Said village paid taxes on a number of crops, such as wheat, barley, fruit, and sesame, in addition to other products and livestock, such as goats, beehives and vines. During the British Mandate, the residents of the village changed its name to al-Khayriyya to differentiate it from the colony of "Benei Beraq", which was established six kilometres north of the village in 1924. At that time, its residents were mostly Muslims, of whom only twenty were Christians. There were two schools in the village, one for boys (established in 1920 and included an 8-donum area used for agricultural training) and another for girls (established in 1945). In 1946, the number of students enrolled in the two schools was 183 boys and 69 girls. The residents of the village worked mainly in agriculture and livestock. In 1944/45, a total of 3359 dunums were allocated to citrus fruits and bananas, 2,355 dunums for cereals, and 1275 dunums were used for orchards with several artesian wells supplying the village with irrigation water.  The village stood witness to aggressive military actions for several months before its full occupation, and the Falastine Newspaper reported, on 15 December 1947, that its residents were digging defensive trenches around the village and taking turns guarding its entrances in what appeared to be a response to the attacks on the neighbouring villages of Salama and al-'Abbasiyya. On 12 February 1948, it was reported that Zionist forces infiltrated in the dark into one of the village's orchards and blew up a house, with no casualties were reported. Al-Khayriyya was one of the villages east of Jaffa that were occupied during the Bi'ur Hametz Operation, which aimed to encircle Jaffa, and the village fell into the hands of the Alexandroni Brigade on 29 April 1948.