Population :
1931 : 275
1944/45 : 390
The village was situated along the two sides of a deep wadi that ran north to south and cut through the middle of a southward-facing slope. Beyond the wadi was a hill that faced the village. ‘Akbara was linked by a path to the nearby city of Salad. Southeast of the village lay Khirbat al-’Uqayba, identified with the Roman village of Achabare (or Acchabaron). In 1904, this khirba was a populated village. In the late nineteenth century, ‘Akbara was a village built of stone and mud. It had about ninety residents who cultivated olive and fig trees. In modern times ‘Akbara’s houses were made of masonry. The people of ‘Akbara were predominantly Muslims.
In 1944 they planted a total of
2,222 dunums in cereals; 199 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. The
nearby khirba was excavated and
contained such remains as building foundations, hewn stones, and wine presses.
In the spring of 1948, Zionist forces
prepared for assaults on the cities of
Safad and Tiberias by launching demoralizing attacks on adjacent villages. As
it lay just 2.5 km away fromthe city, ‘Akbara was chosen to serve as an example
to the people of Safad. On 9 May, units of the Palmach’s First Battalion
attacked ‘Akbara in order to “create among the Arabs of Safad a feeling that
they were about to be surrounded and would be unable to flee The units’ operational orders also claimed
that “the village served as a way station for Syrian spies who infiltrated to
help Safad,” and that it was a base from which Jewish traffic was attacked. The
assault took place within the framework of Operation Yiftach (see Abil al-Qamh,
Salad District). Citing Israeli military sources, Israeli historian Benny Morris
claims that most of the villagers had left by the time of the attack
(influenced by the expulsion and massacre of the people of ‘Ayn al-Zaytun, 3 km
north of Safad, a few days earlier), and that the remainder fled during the
attack after putting up “moderate” resistance. It is not clear whether there
were any casualties, although Morris mentions that the occu pying units blew
up some of the village houses. Some of the villagers sought refuge in
al-Farradiyya and al-Sanunu’i, villages west of ‘Akbara. The events at ‘Akbara
generally undermined morale in Salad, which was attacked the very next day.
(Press services reported that the occupation occur red on 11 May.) Villagers
interviewed twenty-five years later by Palestinian historian Nafez Nazzal said
that both the capture of ‘Ayn al-Zaytun and news of the massacre at Dayr Yasin
(Jerusalem District) led to the evacuation of some of the residents. At the
time of the attack, the village militia ( a body of between fifteen and twenty
men) put up a fight but was overwhelmed and retreated to the village outskirts. The occupying Israeli units did not
stay long in the village, but destroyed a few houses and part of the mosque,
and departed with the livestock. Almost all the villagers stayed at
al-Farradiyya and al-Sanunu’i until these Galilean villages also fell. Some
returned to get food and personal belongings in the intervening period, and
most expected to return.
For some time after the war, ‘Akbara was the
place where the Israeli authorities detained people whom they pushed out of
their villages elsewhere in Galilee. In early June 1949, the people remaining in
three villages in Salad District (al-Ja’una, al-Khisas, and Qaytiyya) were
“forced into trucks.., and dumped on a bare, sun-scorched hillside near the
village of ‘Aqbara,” according to Morris. it is not clear what ultimately
happened to these people or to the village itself, but Morris writes simply
that, “Conditions at ‘Aqbara, where ‘remainders’ from various villages
(Qaddita, Khisas, al-Ja’una, etc.) were clustered together, remained bad for
years.”
There are no Israeli settlements on village lands.
The original inhabitants of the village were replaced by “internal” refugees from Qaddita and Dallata, villages several kilometers north of Safad. Since 1980, however, these refugees have been gradually relocated to the nearby, planned village of’Akbara, 0.5 km west of the old village site. As a precondition of the relocation, each family was required to demolish its home in the former village. Today, fifteen of the old houses still stand on the site, in addition to the school (see photos). The new village of ‘Akbara was placed under the administration of the city of Salad in 1977.
Source(s):
al-Khalidi. All That Remains