Summary
Galilee town southwest of which the battle of Husha and al-Kasayir was fought, and whose occupation in the July 1948 ten-day battles was the first practical test of the secret Druze agreement — its inhabitants did not suffer maltreatment and expulsion, in Manna’s account (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.60, 68, 70).
Details
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Some well-to-do Haifa families moved to Shafa ‘Amr (and Nazareth, and Beirut) after the Palmach attacks on Balad al-Shaykh and Hawwasa in the first week of 1948 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.57).
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The Druze of Shafa ‘Amr played an important role in the fall of their town, implementing the secret agreement between Israeli army officers and some Druze leaders: most fighters in the Arab battalion returned to their homes in Syria and Lebanon, while dozens joined the Israeli side; in return Israel guaranteed the Druze villages would not be subject to maltreatment, killing or destruction (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.68).
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Refugees from Haifa, ‘Akka, Shafa ‘Amr and some nearby villages who had flocked to Nazareth were gradually allowed to return to their homes after Nazareth’s occupation — an unusual policy Manna attributes to government decisions under Ben-Gurion (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.73).
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Chapter 3’s opening (part 3) adds the Druze battalion’s end at Shafa ‘Amr: the withdrawal agreement for Shakib Wahhab’s Jabal al-Arab battalion was concluded in Salih Khunayfis’s house in Shafa ‘Amr on 9 May 1948, and after the volunteers withdrew, ARA leader Mahmud al-Saffuri’s local force of about two hundred men arrested and interrogated alleged collaborators there, some reportedly assaulted and humiliated, deepening Muslim–Druze mistrust (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.120-121).
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The town’s own occupation on 14 July 1948 was the cooperation agreement’s test: Israeli forces under Ben Dunkelman entered from the Druze side without actual fighting, both sides firing in the air in a mock battle, and a Druze unit under Sulayman Abu Rukn joined the occupation (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.121).