Summary
Village eight kilometres northwest of Tiberias, site of Salah al-Din’s 1187 victory over the Crusaders and of the maqam of Nabi Shu’ayb, the holy prophet of the Palestinian Druze; defended by 25 poorly equipped volunteers and cleansed in a particularly brutal manner by Brigade Seven on 17 July 1948, the last act of Operation Palm Tree, in Pappe’s account.
Details
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Hittin clung to the mountain slopes at an elevation of 125 metres above sea level, overlooking the Sea of Galilee; its stone-built houses had roofs of arched wood and were surrounded by orchards and cactus fences (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.204-205).
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The village put up strong resistance although no more than 25 people, all poorly equipped volunteers, defended it, and the fact that the Druze had gone over to the Israeli side and allied themselves with the Israeli army spurred the Israelis in their ambition to capture it, since the grave of Nabi Shu’ayb, whom the Druze identify with Jethro, is there (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.205).
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A new school and a new irrigation system were signs of its recently won affluence, lost after 17 July 1948, when a unit of Brigade Seven entered the village and began cleansing it in a particularly brutal manner; many people escaped to nearby villages that would be occupied in October, when they would be uprooted a second time (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.205).
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The Hittin mosque, built according to tradition by Salah al-Din in 1187, was later sealed with barbed wire by the Ministry of Education after it tricked 73-year-old Abu Jamal of Deir Hanna into cancelling a children’s summer-camp restoration, and its stones, including the foundation stone, were removed by nearby kibbutzniks (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.253-254).
Related pages
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Operation Palm Tree, Druze, Tiberias