Al-Sumayriyya

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Al-Sumayriyya
Arabic	السُميريه
Name Meaning	"The Samaritan"
Also Spelled	Someleria, Katasir
District	Acre
Population	760 (1945)
Jurisdiction	8,542 dunams
Date of depopulation	14 May 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Jewish forces
Current localities	Ha-Geta'ot, Shamrat

al-Sumayriyya (Arabic: السُميريه‎, Katasir in Canaanite times) was a Palestinian village located 6 kilometers north of Acre that was depopulated after it was attacked by Israeli forces on the day of Israel's Declaration of Independence.^[1]

Al-Sumayriyya is Arabic for "Little Samaria". It was inhabited by Samaritans in former centuries, but they were expelled from the area by the Ottoman governor Jezzar Pasha, moving to Nablus in the 18th century, where a community of some 300 continue to live as citizens of the Palestinian National Authority.^[1]

At the beginning of 1945, al-Sumayriyya's 760 inhabitants were all Arab Muslims. The inhabitants fled as a result on the 14 May 1948 assault on the village by the Carmeli Brigade during Operation Ben-Ami, one day prior to the official outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.^[1] The village - along with those of neighbouring al-Bassa and al-Zib which were also captured in the offensive - was subsequently destroyed.^[2]