Qumya
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| Qumya | |
| Arabic | قوميه |
| Also Spelled | Qumiya |
| District | Baysan |
| Population | 440 (1945) |
| Jurisdiction | 4,898 dunams |
| Date of depopulation | 26 March 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Fear of being caught up in the fighting |
| Current localities | En Charod, Geva |
Qumya (Arabic: قوميه) was a Palestinian village of 510 inhabitants when it was depopulated prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.[1]
Located 12.5 kilometers north of Bisan, the village was assaulted by the forces of the Golani Brigade on 26 March 1948 during Operation Gideon, on the orders of Yosef Weitz, a representative of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).[1] Its inhabitants fled in fear of being caught in the fighting.[1]
In his diary, Weitz wrote of the inhabitants of Qumya and al-Tira in the Bisan valley thusly:
"Not taking upon themselves the responsibility of preventing the infiltration of irregulars ... They must be forced to leave their villages until peace comes.[1]
Qumya was made up of Khirbat Qumya and 'Ayn Jalud, an archaeological site where Roman artifacts have been found.[1] The Jewish settlements of En Charod and Geva were built of the village lands.[1]
Walid Khalidi described the remaining village structures, noting:
"The whole site is fenced in. Almond, mulberry, and pomegranate trees and cactuses grow around the rubble that dots the village site. Cypress trees grow among the ruins of the village school."[1]
In Meron Benvenisti's, Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land (2000), he notes that the JNF guided military operations to evacuate and expropriate the land of Palestinian villages, including that of Qumya. In writing of the capture and evacuation of Qumya and Endur (the biblical Endor), he notes that, "The Jews were particularly interested in the village of Qumya, which was entirely surrounded by JNF land..."[2]
