Iqrit إقرث Iqreet, Akrith | |
|---|---|
Village | |
 Saint Mary's Church in Iqrit | |
| Etymology: from personal name[1] | |
.jpg) 1870s map.jpg) 1940s map.jpg) modern map.jpg) 1940s with modern overlay mapA series of historical maps of the area around Iqrit (click the buttons) | |
  Iqrit Location withinMandatory Palestine | |
| Coordinates:33°04′32″N35°16′31″E / 33.07556°N 35.27528°E /33.07556; 35.27528 | |
| Palestine grid | 176/275 |
| Geopolitical entity | Mandatory Palestine |
| Subdistrict | Acre |
| Date of depopulation | early November 1948[4] |
| Area | |
• Total | 21,711dunams (21.711 km2; 8.383 sq mi) |
| Population (1945) | |
• Total | 490[2][3] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Expulsion byYishuv forces |
| Current Localities | Shomera,[5]Even Menachem,[5]Goren[5]Gornot ha-Galil[5] |
Iqrit (Arabic:إقرت or إقرث,Iqrith; sometimesromanized asIkret) was aPalestinian Christian village, located 25 kilometres (16 miles) northeast ofAcre, in the western Galilee.[6] In October 1948, the village's Palestinian Arab inhabitants were expelled byZionist forces during the1948 Palestine war, and the territory later became part of the new State ofIsrael.[7] All of its Palestinian Christian inhabitants were forced to flee toLebanon or the Israeli village ofRameh, and, despite the promise that they would be returned in two weeks' time, the villagers were not allowed to return, and the Israeli army destroyed the village.[6]
In 1951, in response to a plea from the Iqrit villagers, theIsrael Supreme Court had ruled that the former residents of Iqrit be allowed to return to their homes. However, before they could, the IDF, despite awareness of the Supreme Court decision, destroyed Iqrit on Christmas Day 1951. Descendants of the villagers maintain an outpost in the village church, and bury their dead in its cemetery. All attempts to cultivate its lands are uprooted by theIsrael Lands Administration.[8]
TheCanaanites erected a statue for the godMelqart ofTyre in the village. The village area contains mosaic floors, remains of a wine press, rock-hewn tombs, cisterns, and granite implements. There are manyarchaeological sites in Iqrit's vicinity.
Iqrit is identified withYoqeret orYokereth (Hebrew:יוקרת) aJewish village mentioned in theTalmud, homeplace ofJose of Yokereth (Babylonian Talmud,Ta'anit, 23b).[9]
When theCrusaders occupied Iqrit, they called it Acref. Açref is a name still commonly used for the village among surroundingBedouin tribes.
Incorporated into theOttoman Empire in 1517 with all ofPalestine, Iqrit appeared in the 1596tax registers as being in thenahiya (subdistrict) ofAkka under the Liwa ofSafad, with a population of 374 and an economy dependent largely ongoats,beehives andagriculture. There was a press used forolives orgrapes.[10][11]
In 1875,Victor Guérin passed by the village and was told that it was "very considerable" and inhabited by Maronites and Greek Orthodox Christians.[12]In 1881, thePalestine Exploration Fund's (PEF)Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) called itAkrith, and described it as a village of stone buildings situated on atell, with arable land including figs and olives, a modern chapel serving a Christian population of 100, and water supplied by three springs and a dozen rock-cutcisterns.[13]
Like a number of other villages in the area, Iqrit was linked to the coastal highway fromAcre toRas an-Naqura via a secondary road leading toTarbikha. There were 339 people living in 50 houses in thecensus of 1931,[14] which rose to 490 by the1945 statistics, comprising 460 Christians and 30 Muslims.[2] There was a total of 24,722dunams (6,109acres) of land according to an official land and population survey.[3] Of this, 458 dunams were plantations and irrigable land; 1,088 were used for cereals,[15] while 68 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[16]
At the time of their eviction in November 1948, there were 491 citizens in Iqrit, including 432Melkites (Greek Catholics), inhabiting the entire area of the village. Some of the 59Muslims of the village rented their homes in Iqrit while others had built houses in esh-Shafaya.[citation needed]
Only part of the village land was cultivated and the rest was covered withoak,laurel andcarob trees. By 1948, the village owned about 600dunams (600,000 m²) of private property with groves offig trees that served all inhabitants of Iqrit and the surroundings. The groves covered the hill of al-Bayad, and the remaining cultivated land was used for crops oflentils, as well astobacco and other fruit trees.[citation needed]
The village included a private elementary school administered by theGreek Catholic Archdiocese and a large Melkite (Greek Catholic) church, the latter of which remains standing. There were two natural water springs, and many wells and a large pool for collected rainwater. There were many threshing floors, mainly located between the built-up village lands and the cemetery.[citation needed]
Iqrit was captured on 31 October 1948 by theHaganah'sOded Brigade duringOperation Hiram, an Israeli offensive which advanced on the coastal road towardsLebanon.Iqrit and Tarbikha surrendered and the villagers stayed in their homes.[17]
Iqrit and a number of other villages in the region were soon affected by a policy known as "an Arabless border strip".[17] Six days after its surrender, on 5 November 1948, the Israeli Army ordered the villagers to surrender the village and leave, stating that they would be returned in two weeks' time when the military operations had concluded. Residents departed, anticipating only temporary absence, as had been promised.[6] Some went toLebanon and the Israeli Army trucked the majority toRame, a town betweenAcre andSafad.[citation needed]
According to Israeli historianBenny Morris, the villagers of Iqrit were outright expelled by theIsraeli Army in November 1948, together with the villagers ofKafr Bir'im,Nabi Rubin andTarbikha, "without Cabinet knowledge, debate, or approval – though, almost inevitably, this receivedpost facto Cabinet endorsement."[18] While some of the former inhabitants of Iqrit becamerefugees inLebanon, most are nowinternally displaced Palestinians who are also citizens ofIsrael.
In 1951,Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari brought against Israel the first legal action concerning villagers returning to their homes. This was on behalf of 5 men who were Iqrit villagers and Israeli citizens. On 31 July 1951, the Israeli courts recognised the rights of the villagers to their land and their right to return to it. The court said the land was not abandoned and therefore could not be placed under theCustodian of Absentee Property.[19]
In July 1951, the villagers of Iqrit pleaded their case before Israel'sSupreme Court, and the court ruled in favour of the right to return to their village, "as long as no emergency decree" against it has been issued.[20] After this judgement, the military government immediately issued such a decree against the Ikrit evacuees.[20] The villagers appealed to the Supreme Court again and were scheduled to have their case considered on 6 February 1952.[21]
Two months after the Israeli High Court had rules in favour of the Ikrit residents, onChristmas Day 1951,Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed the village, including its residences and churches.[6] According to theWashington Report on Middle East Affairs, Israeli soldiers took thevillage chief of Iqrit to the top of a nearby hill to force him to watch as Israeli troops conducted explosive demolition of each house in the village.[22]
In its third verdict, in February 1952, the court blamed the villagers for depending on promises from the military ruler ofGalilee, instead of benefiting from the legal remedy which was given to them by the court in its first relevant verdict.[22] In 1955, 16,000 dunam in Ikrit was expropriated for establishing Jewish settlements.[20] The expropriation was justified by "a sickening claim that nobody had lived in them for two years", according toZehava Galon.[23]
In the 1970s, villagers from Iqrit conducted a series of sit-ins in the village's former church over a period of six years, and the case of Iqrit (and of Kafr Bir'im) was frequently covered by the Israeli media.[24] Several prominent Israeli cultural and artistic figures supported the movement to repatriate the Iqrit villagers and public empathy for their plight was widespread. While the Israeli authorities recognized the villagers' right to return in principle, officials resisted implementing this right. In 1972, Israeli Prime MinisterGolda Meir stated:
It is not only consideration of security [that prevents] an official decision regarding Bi'rim and Iqrit, but the desire to avoid [setting] a precedent. We cannot allow ourselves to become more and more entangled and to reach a point from which we are unable to extricate ourselves.[7]
Meron Benvenisti noted in 2000 how it has been argued that the villagers of Iqrit and Bi'rim are not the onlypresent absentees in Israel, and therefore recognizing theirright of return is perceived as setting a "dangerous precedent" that would be followed by similar demands from other displaced persons.[7] However, Benvenisti argued in 2008 that it could be a positive precedent if the Iqrit villagers were to be allocated the small amount of empty land they need to establish a community settlement on their own land.[25]
In 2003, some of Iqrit's villagers repetitioned the Supreme Court so as to facilitate their return to Iqrit, but the petition was rejected by the court.[24][26]
In August 2012, a large demonstration was held in the city of Haifa demanding Israel to grant the descendants of villagers from Iqrit and Kafr Bir'im the right of return to the respective villages. Since the last Roots Camp[clarification needed] In 2012, a group of the village's youth decided to stay in the village and conduct their lives as regular villagers; this came as an act of opposition to the Israeli government's continued dismissal of the case.
In 2013,Gideon Levy andAlex Levac noted that "third-generation refugees − 15 young people − have established an outpost in the village church; they have been living here, under the radar, for more than a year."[27]
Iqrit is among the demolished Palestinian villages for which commemorative Marches of Return have taken place, such as those organized by theAssociation for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced.[28]
Ahead ofPope Francis visit to the region in 2014 the Iqrit villagers sent him a letter asking him to pressure Israel to allow them to return. At the same time, inspectors from theIsrael Land Administration uprooted newly planted trees and confiscated equipment used by villagers staying in Iqrit.[29]
In April 2015 the elders of Iqrit congregated with the younger generations in the old Church of St. Mary for Easter Monday Mass. Aymen Odeh, a Knesset member and a longtime supporter of the villagers and said it was time to take the case outside the village. “We need demonstrations in public squares and in front of the Knesset”, he said.[30]
The operational name of theMunich massacre of Israeli athletes in 1972 was named by its perpetrators, theBlack September Organization, "Iqrit and Bir'im", after the two Galilean villages.[31]
On 26 December 2023, during theGaza war, an anti-tank missile shot byHezbollah fighters from Lebanon damaged a shed in the Iqrit church compound, but not the church itself.[32] The civilian man in his 80s who was guarding the church suffered moderate wounds.[32] As IDF troops and medical services were working to evacuate him, they were hit by further missiles, which resulted in nine soldiers being wounded, one of them seriously.[33][34]
Following the war, the area was incorporated into the State ofIsrael and a number of new Jewish villages were established there, two of them partially on Iqrit's land:Shomera (1949; built mainly on the ruins of Tarbikha), andEven Menachem (1960).Gornot HaGalil (1980) followed nearby. At the western entrance of Iqrit, there is now a cowshed that belongs to themoshav of Shomera.
The Melkite Greek Catholic church is the only building of Iqrit which remains standing. The fenced cemetery is annually maintained, on the road to the north. Uncleared rubble from the destroyed houses remains and there are overgrown fig, grape, almond, and olive orchards.
