Summary
Triangle hamlet whose inhabitants were illegally expelled to Jatt on 2 March 1950, won a final Supreme Court order for their return, and saw their houses blown up on 11 August 1953 by members of kibbutz Lehavot Haviva with the army’s help to prevent the ruling being carried out, in Manna’s account (Nakba and Survival, Lehavot Haviva, Israel–Jordan Armistice Agreement (Rhodes, 1949), PDF p.190-191).
Details
- The inhabitants hired Muhammad Nimr al-Hawwari and went to court in January 1952; residents testified the expulsion was on the military governor of Baqa al-Gharbiyya’s directives, and a kibbutz had been established on their lands (Nakba and Survival, Lehavot Haviva, Israel–Jordan Armistice Agreement (Rhodes, 1949), PDF p.190).
- The Supreme Court answered the defendants’ claim that the kibbutz could not lawfully be removed: “The basic sense of justice rebels at hearing this claim, that the armed forces authorities cannot remove the kibbutz from the land on which it was set up,” and made its temporary order final, requiring defendants not to obstruct the plaintiffs’ return (Nakba and Survival, Lehavot Haviva, Israel–Jordan Armistice Agreement (Rhodes, 1949), PDF p.190-191).
- Manna puts al-Jalama with Iqrit and Kfar Bir’im: court decisions in the villagers’ favour, houses blown up by or with the army, return prevented; mukhtar Muhammad Naddaf, who had lost his house and 4,500 uprooted olive trees, wrote the prime minister on 11 August 1953, “Is this a state or a gang?” (Nakba and Survival, Lehavot Haviva, Israel–Jordan Armistice Agreement (Rhodes, 1949), PDF p.191).
Related pages
Nakba and Survival, Lehavot Haviva, Israel–Jordan Armistice Agreement (Rhodes, 1949), The Triangle, Iqrit, Kfar Bir’im, Muhammad Nimr al-Hawwari