1939, Iqrit, Palestine - At the time of their eviction in November 1948, Iqrit was home to 491 residents, the majority of whom 432 were Melkite (Greek Catholic) Christians living throughout the village, the remaining 59 Muslim inhabitants either rented homes in Iqrit or had built houses in the nearby area of esh-Shafaya. By 1948, the villagers collectively owned around 600 dunams (approximately 600,000 m²) of private land. Much of this area was covered with fig groves that served both the people of Iqrit and neighboring communities....

1939, Iqrit, Palestine

Pals

@palsofnations

1939, Iqrit, Palestine  

 

At the time of their eviction in November 1948, Iqrit was home to 491 residents, the majority of whom 432 were Melkite (Greek Catholic) Christians living throughout the village, the remaining 59 Muslim inhabitants either rented homes in Iqrit or had built houses in the nearby area of esh-Shafaya. 

 

By 1948, the villagers collectively owned around 600 dunams (approximately 600,000 m²) of private land. 

 

Much of this area was covered with fig groves that served both the people of Iqrit and neighboring communities. 

 

These groves spread across the hill of al-Bayad, while the remaining cultivated lands were used to grow lentils, tobacco, and various fruit trees. 

 

Iqrit had a private elementary school managed by the Greek Catholic Archdiocese, as well as a large Melkite church that still stands today. 

 

The village was rich in natural water sources, including two springs, numerous wells, and a large pool that collected rainwater. 

 

Several threshing floors lay between the residential area and the cemetery, reflecting the agricultural life that once flourished in Iqrit.

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Palestine Remembered  

 

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details 

 

https://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Iqrit/index.html 

 

In November 1948, Iqrit was completely ethnically cleansed... by Zionist troops  

 

Some of the refugees were bused to Lebanon, to al-Rashedyah refugee camp, and the rest were bused al-Rama, 20 km south. 

 

Village Before Nakba

The village was located on a steep hill a few kilometers from the Lebanese border. It overlooked uneven terrain on the east and Wadi al-Bassa (which descended towards the sea) on the west. A secondary road, on which a good number of villages were also located, linked it to the Acre-Ra's al-Naqura coastal highway. Iqrit could be traced back to the Canaanites, who erected a statue on the site representing the god Melqart of Tyre. The Crusaders occupied it and called it Acref. Like other villages in Palestine, Iqrit was devastated by the events of the Crusades. It was subsequently rebuilt, and by 1596 this village in the nahiya of Tibnin (liwa' of Safad) had a population of 374. It paid taxes on goats and beehives and on its press, which was used for processing either olives or grapes. In the late nineteenth century, Iqrit had a population of about 100. The buildings in the village were made of stone and included a modern chapel. Situated on a tell, the village was surrounded by arable land, which the villagers planted with fig and olive trees...  READ MORE  https://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Iqrit/index.html

We Shall Return The Story of Iqrit by Fida Jiryis...This Week in Palestine

Sign Showing Site of Home - Iqrit.

http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3697&ed=206&edid=206

We Shall Return The Story of Iqrit

By Fida Jiryis

“I don’t want to open all my wounds…,” says Maher Daoud, a descendent of Iqrit refugees, as we drive to the site where the village of his parents once stood. I wince and apologise, aware of how difficult the subject must be for him. Iqrit is one of the 350 or so Palestinian villages that were completely destroyed and ethnically cleansed in 1948, its residents barred from returning and turned, overnight, into internal refugees in their own country.

Maher, 43, is married to my cousin, Njoud, and they live in Mi’ilya, a village in the Galilee. They regularly drive up to Iqrit, whose church is all that remains today, to partake in religious celebrations at Christmas and Easter and to visit dead relatives in Iqrit’s cemetery. The occasion of our visit now is sombre: Maher’s mother passed away two years ago, and we are here to visit her grave on the occasion of Good Friday, as is the custom among Palestinian Christians.

The drive to Iqrit takes a mere twenty minutes from my village, Fassouta. Both are in the Galilee: the north of historical Palestine, a few kilometres from the Lebanese border. During Israel’s “War of Independence” in 1948, or the Nakba (Catastrophe) as Palestinians refer to it, the residents of Iqrit and Biram, another nearby village, were uprooted from their homes on “security grounds,” presumably for Israel to protect its northern border. The residents of Iqrit were bussed to Rama village, twenty kilometres south in the Galilee, and told it would be for a few weeks, until the security situation was calm and they could return. But they never did. On Christmas Eve, 1950, the Israeli army blew up all the houses of Iqrit, in a timely “Christmas gift” to its expelled Christian residents. My father, a boy of 12 at the time, saw the smoke rising above the village in the distance, and, in panic and haste, told a man named Tu’meh from Iqrit, who had taken refuge in Fassouta. Tu’meh’s eyes filled with tears.

In 1951, the Israeli High Court ruled that the villagers be allowed to return “as long as no emergency decree” existed against the village. With cold predictability, the government was quick to issue such a decree against the Iqrit evacuees. In 1953, it blew up the houses of Biram, too, leaving only the churches of the two villages standing. Two years later, the theft was completed: the land of the two villages - 16,000 dunams (1 dunam = 1000 m2) in Iqrit and 12,000 dunams in Biram - was expropriated for establishing Jewish settlements, which are there today: Even Menahem, Shlomi, and Shtula.

I’d read about this before; Israel coldly and ruthlessly destroyed about 350 Palestinian villages and turned close to 700,000 Palestinians into homeless refugees during the Nakba. I had visited Suhmata, another such village, already, so I was prepared for what I expected to see. Nothing stopped the flood of goose bumps, though, when my cousin whispered: “Here it is. The village starts here.”

“The village” that she was referring to “started” as a small pile of rubble by the roadside. Maher was quick to point to the church atop a hill in the distance. “That’s Iqrit,” he said.

I experienced the same sickening disbelief I’d felt when an old relative had pointed to a tree-covered hill and told me: “Here it is. This is Suhmata.”

In fact, it is completely surreal: all you see are shrubs and trees, thick greenery as is characteristic of the wilderness of Galilee. The small piles of rubble dotted periodically around are the only small reason to believe that those speaking to you are not deranged or delusional.

The climb to Iqrit’s cemetery and church is up a tiny, winding road with tall grass on either side. April is springtime in Palestine, and the Galilee has rightfully been dubbed the most beautiful area in the country, with superb views and hills luscious with thick, deep greenery. The site of Iqrit has one of the best views that I’ve ever seen: the greenery is so vivid, thick, and beautiful that it blows my mind away.

As we climb up the winding road...READ MORE

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For the Expected One, by Ismail Shammout.