Iqrit
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Iqrit' (Arabic إقرث or إقرت) was a Palestinian village that was captured by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The village was located in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan (Benvenisti, 2002). According to Morris (1994, p.281) the villagers were outright expelled by the Israel Army in November 1948, (together with the villagers of Kafr Bir'im, Nabi Rubin, Tarbikha) "without Cabinet knowledge, debate, or approval -though, almost inevitably, they received post facto Cabinet endorsement."
The village is 25 km north east of Acre. Like a number of other villages in the neighborhood, Iqrit was linked to the coastal highway from Acre to Ras an-Naqoora via a secondary road leading to Tarbikha. There were 339 people living in 50 houses in 1931. The number rose to 490 by 1945. At the moment of eviction in Nov. 1948, there were 491 citizens in Iqrit, 432 of them were Greek Catholic who inhabited the entire area of the village. Recently four families built their houses opposite the village from west, on a side hill of al-Bayad. Few of its 59 Moslems lived by rent within the village, while others built their houses in esh-Shafaya.
Iqrit has a history as ancient as the Canaanites who erected in it a statue for the god Melqart of Tyre. When the Crusaders occupied Iqrit, they called it Acref. This name probably is still common among surrounding Bedouin tribes: Açref! After they left, it remained devastated, until it was re-built and in 1596, it joined the county of Tibnin, district of Safad. Its population then was 374 whose economy was dependent largely on goats, beehives and agriculture. There was a press used for both olives and grapes. The population dropped down to about 100 by late nineteenth century. The village area has numerous archaeological sites.
Only part of the land was cultivated; the rest was covered with woods of oak, laurel and carob trees. By the year 1948 the village owned about 600 dunam (600,000 m²) private property groves of fig trees which served all inhabitants, of Iqrit and the surroundings, the groves covered mainly, the hill of al-Bayad, the remaining cultivated land served for Crops of Lentils mainly, besides to Tobacco and other fruit trees.
There were an elementary school in the village, 2 water springs, many other water-wells for collected rainwater within the village area, besides to a large pool of rainwater. There were many threshing floors mainly in between the village and the cemetery.
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[edit] 1948, and after
The tragedy of Iqrit started on 31st October 1948 when the offensive of Israel Defense Forces advanced on the coastal road towards Lebanon. Iqrit and Tarbikha surrendered and the villagers stayed in their homes. That 'luxury' did not last for long. Iqrit and a number of other villages in the region fell victims to a policy known as "an Arabless border strip".
Six days after its surrender, the Israeli Army ordered the villagers to evacuate the village, and that they would be returned in two weeks, time when the military operations are over. Few went to Lebanon and the Israeli Army trucked the majority to al-Rama (Midway between Acre and Safad).
In 1951,the villagers of Iqrit pleaded to the Supreme Court to allow them to return. The case was "lost" in the Supreme Court of justice. In Its third verdict the Court (Feb. 1952) blamed the villagers for depending on promises from the military ruler of Galilee, instead of benefiting from the "legal medication" which was "given" to them by the Court in its first relevant verdict.
In the early 1980s the case of "Iqrit" (and Kafr Biri'm) was frequently in the news on the Israeli media. It gained the support and sympathy of wide spectrum of the Jewish population, where besides to public empathy, several prominent figures of culture and Arts lead a movement in favor of repatriating Iqrit.
A number of settlements were built near the village lands. Those are: Shomera (1949 on Tarbikha ruins), Even Menachem (1960) and Granot Ha-Galil (1980).
Today, only the building of Greek Catholic Church still stands. There is rubble from the destroyed houses and some Fig, Grape, Almond, Thorn and other kinds of trees. On the shoulder looking at the road passing by from the north, the cemetery of Iqrit is still located, fenced and annually maintained. There is a cowshed that belongs to the settlement of Shomera, on the western entrance of the village, as well.
| Iqrit | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| District | District of Acre | ||||||
| Location | 25.5 km northeast of Acre | ||||||
| Israeli occupation date | October 31, 1948 | ||||||
| Israeli military operation | Operation Hiram | ||||||
| Israeli attacking brigade | Oded Brigade | ||||||
| Remaining population after occupation | Population was completely expulsioned November 1948 | ||||||
| Remaining structures after occupation | A church | ||||||
| Population |
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| Number of houses | 1931: 40 | ||||||
| Historical names |
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| Israeli localities | Shomera, Even Menachem, Goren, Gornot haGalil | ||||||
| Public structures | A church, a school | ||||||
[edit] See also
- List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
- Operation Hiram
- The Deportations of the Hiram Operation: Correcting a Mistake
- Internally Displaced Palestinians
- Anti-Catholicism
[edit] References
- Sabri Jiryis: The Arabs in Israel 1st American edition 1976 ISBN 0-85345-377-2 (updated from the 1966 ed.) With a foreword by Noam Chomsky. (First English edition; Beirut, Institute for Palestine Studies, 1968). Chapter 4.
- Benny Morris: 1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians Oxford, 1994.
- Benvenisti, Meron (2002): Sacred Landscape: Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23422-7
