Summary
Village north of ‘Akka whose people returned at the end of 1948, were expelled again to al-Mazra’a and Shaykh Danun in January 1950, won a Supreme Court ruling on 30 November 1951 that they had a right to return, went back the following month, and were turned out again because the village had been declared a closed military area — after which its houses were torn down, only the mosque left standing (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.200-201).
Details
- The villagers had moved away after an attack on the village in May 1948 and found temporary refuge in neighbouring Arab villages; their return at the end of 1948 lasted until the army forced them out at the end of January 1950 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.200-201).
- The Supreme Court ruled on 30 November 1951 that the villagers had a right to return to their houses; when they went back the following month the army expelled them again under the closed-military-area declaration, and Manna calls the ruling “merely formal and symbolic,” overcome through the 1945 emergency regulations (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.201).
- As in Iqrit and Kfar Bir’im, the authorities tore down the village’s houses to end the return hopes once and for all, leaving only the mosque (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.201).
Where sources disagree
- Pappe groups Ghabisiyya with Iqrit and Kfar Bir’im as villages whose people secured a categorical court ruling and whose villages the army destroyed in 1951 to prevent repatriation (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.219, 221); Manna’s account gives the ruling’s date (30 November 1951) and the re-expulsion but no date for the demolition (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.201).