Summary
Galilee village between Shafa ‘Amr and Nazareth where, on 13 December 1954, villagers resisting a government water-catchment on their lands clashed with police, dozens were arrested and marched handcuffed twelve kilometres to Shafa ‘Amr, and thirty-seven were brought before a military court — an event Manna calls the first mass protest action in defence of what was left of Arab land (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.215-216).
Details
- The government had failed to convince the villagers to sell or relinquish their lands for the catchment; when workers began building, villagers gathered to stop the work, police answered stone-throwing with violence, and detainees were locked in a horse stable at the Dhahir al-‘Umar fort in Shafa ‘Amr, some released after two or three days and thirty-seven held on charges of assaulting police and obstructing the water company’s work (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.215).
- Hanna Abu Hanna visited days later and recorded the day as “Uri’s day,” after the officer responsible for the arrests; villagers told him dozens were arrested at the mosque and in their homes and complained of insults and torture of the prisoners (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.215).
- The Communist Party organized the protest response: Nazareth municipal representatives demanded an extraordinary council session, Khalil Khuri warning that “the danger that the government may implement its project to steal the lands of al-Battuf and to expel over 15,000 Arab farmers there threatens all the masses of the Arab minority and not just the residents of al-Battuf,” and an Ilabun petition concluded: “The attack on the residents of Kufr Manda is an attack on all Arab citizens of Israel.” (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.215-216).