Wikipedia
Al-Khalasa (, al-Khalasah; , al-Khalatsah) was a Palestinian village, located 23 kilometers southwest of the city of Beersheba. The village was originally founded by the Nabateans under the name of "al-Khalus", and then "Elusa" under the Byzantines where it served an administrative center in the Negev Desert. It continued as a major town by its modern name "al-Khalasa" during Mamluk rule, but was abandoned sometime in the fifteenth century CE. It was repopulated by Bedouins in the early twentieth century, after western archaeologists took an interest in it. In October 1948, it was captured by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The population of al-Khalasa is unknown, but all of the inhabitants were Muslims, from the al-Azizma tribe.