In 1838, it was noted as a
Muslim village in the southern part of the
Er-Ramleh area.[7]
In 1863,
Victor Guérin found a village of some twenty half destroyed and deserted houses, under a large
mimosa tree.[8]
The village was mentioned in an official
Ottoman village list from around 1870, showing it had 10 houses and a population of 29, though the population count included men only.[9][10]
In 1883, the "Survey of Western Palestine" found at Dayr Muhaysin: "Traces of a former village; a conspicuous white mound, with
cisterns and caves; a large site, also known as Umm esh Shukf."[11]
In the
1945 statistics, the village had a population of 460 Muslims,[2] while the total land area was 10,008
dunams (equivalent to the Greek
stremma or English/American
acre), according to an official land and population survey.[3] Of this, 45 dunams were plantations or irrigated, 7,909 for
cereals,[13] while 72 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.[14]
1947–1948 war, and aftermath
In December 1947 the village was evacuated. The Jewish
Haganah paramilitary force paved an alternative route from
Al-Masmiyya to
Latrun, in order not to pass through the Palestinian Arab city of
Ramla but the alternative route passed near the village. In the first month of the
1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine there were attacks on Jewish transportation. In these attacks two high Jewish commanders were killed and according to Israeli historian
Yoav Gelber, fear from acts of revenge led the villagers to temporarily evacuate.[15][16]
The village was captured on April 6, 1948, during
Operation Nachshon. The operational orders were to treat all Arab villages on the
Khulda – Jerusalem corridor as "enemy assembly of jump off places", and such villages were to be destroyed and the villagers expelled. Dayr Muhaysin, Khulda and
Saydun were the three first target villages.[17][18][19]
In 1951, the Israeli settlement of
Beko'a was established on village land, northwest of the village site.[5]