Summary
Galilee village east of Nahaf whose Christian residents were expelled toward Lebanon on 31 October 1948 and then allowed to return within a day or two after Druze intervention, in Manna’s account — a reversal he leaves suspended between two explanations, church pressure from clergy in the country, Lebanon and the West, and the intervention of the Druze leaders of Yarka (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.92-93).
Details
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A military unit entered al-Rama on Sunday 31 October 1948; soldiers gathered the men east of the village, blew up Elias Shukri’s house, and took chosen young men away as “prisoners of war” to Israeli prisons; Dr. ‘Atallah Shayban was released after the Latin priest asked that he be freed to treat a woman in labour, and Dr. Elias Srouji, who had arrived the previous day from Lebanon with his cancer-stricken father, was permitted to return with his family to Nazareth (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.91-92).
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A soldier the account takes for a Yemeni Jew then announced: “Our Druze friends were with us from the beginning of the road. Everyone else is our enemy. Under the orders of the Israeli government you have one hour to go back to your houses and fetch what you want; after that you will have to head north.” To residents who cited the army’s promises of the previous day he answered: “We know nothing about any promises. We were not here yesterday” (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.92).
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Only the Christians were expelled, not the Druze; the expellees climbed toward Jarmaq Mountain, and at al-Sahla near Bayt Jan the Druze of Bayt Jan and al-Buqay’a met them, contacted Shaykh Jabr al-Ma’di and other Druze notables, and their intervention was largely responsible for the return; the great majority came home, including families who had reached the southern Lebanese border (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.92).
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All the written and oral accounts Manna cites agree that only the Christians were expelled and that the expellees returned after a day or two near Bayt Jan (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.92).
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Al-Rama’s bombing on the night of 25-27 October 1948, witnessed by the returning Srouji family, had opened Operation Hiram after a hundred-day cease-fire (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.81-82).
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Al-Rama is also where the evicted residents of Iqrit were ordered to go on 6 November 1948, thirty kilometres from their village (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.109).
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In Chapter 4 (part 4), refugees from Kufr ‘Inan lived for dozens of years in temporary shelters at al-Dabba, al-Rama’s western entrance, after their repeated requests to return to their lands were refused (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.159).
Related pages
Nakba and Survival, Nahaf, Ilabun, Druze, Iqrit, Operation Hiram