Al-Haditha, Palestine
| Al-Haditha | |
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 Al-Haditha
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| Arabic | الحديثة |
| Name meaning | "new" |
| Subdistrict | Ramle |
| Coordinates | 31°57′48″N 34°57′07″E / 31.96333°N 34.95194°ECoordinates: 31°57′48″N 34°57′07″E / 31.96333°N 34.95194°E |
| Palestine grid | 145/152 |
| Population | 760 (1945) |
| Date of depopulation | July 12, 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces |
| Current localities | Hadid |
Al-Haditha was a Palestinian village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was located 8 km northeast of Ramla, on the bank of Wadi al-Natuf. The site, now known as Tel Hadid, has yielded significant archaeological remains from many periods. Al-Haditha was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 12, 1948 under the first stage of Operation Dani.
It has been suggested that Al-Haditha was the site of the biblical village of Hadid, mentioned in the Book of Ezra (II, 33) and later in the Mishna as a city of Judea fortified by Joshua.Hadid was called 'Adida in the Book of Maccabees, while Eusebius referred to it as Adatha or Aditha.
In 1870, Victor Guérin visited and "at a quarter of an hour's distance south-east of Haditheh, [he] found several ancient tombs cut in the rock. The village of Haditheh he found to be on the site of an ancient town. Cisterns, a birket, tombs, and rock-cut caves, with cut stones scattered about, are all that remain."
An official Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that "El Hadite" had 28 houses and a population of 145, though the population count included only men.
In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village as "a moderate-sized village on a terraced Tell at the mouth of a valley at the foot of the hills, with a well on the east. There are remains of a considerable town round it, tombs and quarries exist ; and the mound on which the village stands is covered with pottery."
In a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Hadata had a population of 415 inhabitants; all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 520, still all Muslims, in a total of 119 houses.
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