Qaqun قاقون Quaquo, Caco, Chaco, Kâkôn, Kakoun | |
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![In the Crusader period, a castle called Caco or Cacho stood here, of which an 8.5m tower survives.[1]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aQaqun-fortress-18.jpg) | |
| Etymology: from personal name[2] | |
.jpg) 1870s map.jpg) 1940s map.jpg) modern map.jpg) 1940s with modern overlay mapA series of historical maps of the area around Qaqun (click the buttons) | |
  Qaqun Location withinMandatory Palestine | |
| Coordinates:32°21′36″N34°59′43″E / 32.36000°N 34.99528°E /32.36000; 34.99528 | |
| Palestine grid | 149/196 |
| Geopolitical entity | Mandatory Palestine |
| Subdistrict | Tulkarm |
| Date of depopulation | 5 June 1948[5] |
| Area | |
• Total | 41,767dunams (41.767 km2; 16.126 sq mi) |
| Population (1945) | |
• Total | 1,970[3][4] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault byYishuv forces |
| Current Localities | HaMa'apil,[6]Gan Yoshiya,[6]Ometz,[6]´Olesh,[6]Haniel,[6]Yikon[6] |
Qaqun (Arabic:قاقون) was aPalestinianArab village located 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) northwest of the city ofTulkarm at the only entrance toMount Nablus from the coastalSharon plain.[7]
Evidence of organized settlement in Qaqun dates back to the period ofAssyrian rule in the region. Ruins of a Crusader and Mamluk castle still stand at the site.[8] Qaqun was continuously inhabited byArabs since at least as early as theMamluk period[8] and was depopulated during a military operation byIsraeli forces during the1948 Arab-Israeli war, after Iraqi troops used the town as a base for operations.
While the site is an ancient one, the current name, Qāqūn is anAramaic one, meaning “littlepelican”. In theCrusader period it was variously transcribed as Caco, Caccho among other forms. Some 17th century Ottoman documents have another variant, Qāqūm (قاقوم).[9]
Assyrianartifacts have been discovered in Qaqun.[10] Among these are fragments ofstelae recording the victory ofSargon II over thePhilistine city-states in the 8th century BC, providing evidence of the establishment of Assyrian rule in Palestine.[11]
In the 1st century AD,Antipas, like others close to theHerodians who ruled over parts of the region at the time, was granted dominion over large areas of land. One of the gifts (doreai) he received was a parcel of land located in the Plain of Sharon which included Qaqun, among other villages.[12]
In theCrusader period, a castle called Caco or Cacho stood here, of which an 8.5m tower survives.[13][1] In 1160,Benjamin of Tudela visited Qaqun which he identified as being ancientKeilah.[14] It was mentioned in 1253 when it apparently still was held by thelord of Caesarea,John Aleman.[15]
In 1271, LordEdward of England launched a large raid during theNinth Crusade with the support of theTemplar,Hospitaller, andTeutonic Knights on the town of Qaqun,[16] in which he surprised a large force ofTurcomans (mostly itinerant herdsmen), reportedly killing 1,500 of them and taking 5,000 animals as booty. These Turcomans were likely relatively new additions toBaibars' army, being integrated in 1268 and given horses, titles, and lands in return for military service after the Turkmen migrations following theMongol invasions.[17]
Qaqun was captured by theMamluk sultanBaibars (1259–1277) in 1267. Under Mamluk rule, Qaqun was the capital of one of six districts that made up the province ofas-Sham, the Mamluk administrative unit for a part of the governorship of "MamlakatGaza", one of the region's three Mamluk administrative governorships, the other two being "Mamlakat Dimashq" (Damascus) and "Mamlakat Zafad" (Safed).[18] Qaqun and alsoLydda appeared to be independent provinces later in this period.[18] Baybars had ordered its fortress rebuilt and had itschurch renovated and made into amosque. Its markets were re-established, and it soon became a commercial center with acaravanserai for merchants, travelers, and their animals.[19] While early scholarship often attributed the construction of the fortress to Crusaders, both the fortress and mosque at Qaqun are now thought to have built during the reign ofBaybars, who also built the administrative center and largemarket there.[8]
In December 1271, as Baybars was battling theMongols inAleppo, theCrusader forces ofKing Edward raided Qaqun, but were quickly fought back by the forces of the Mamlukemirs.[20] However the near contemporary Egyptian historianIbn al-Furat wrote that Edward’s raid may have been a little more troublesome, he wrote:
“At the end of the month of Rabi' II, the month already mentioned (4 December 1271), the Sultan learnt that the Franks had attacked Qaqun (Caco); the emir Husam al-Din, the ustadh-dar, had been killed and the emir Rukn al-Din al-Jaliq wounded; while the governor of the place had had to leave.”[21]
At the end of the 13th century, theVia Maris was moved eastward inland to improve the line of defence since Palestine's coastal cities were the first to fall to competing powers seeking to expand their domain. The route followed the coast of theSinai, passing throughAl-Arish,Rafah,Khan Yunis, andGaza. There, a branch then turned eastward toJerusalem, ontoHebron while another passed throughBeit Hanoun toRamlah throughDaris and continued north toLydda, throughJaljulia andTira to the center of Qaqun. From Qaqun, the route branched into two, one leading toJenin and the other toWadi Ara. Many of these places were villages that hadkhans built there in the 14th century.[22] The khan in Qaqun was built on the orders of Mamluk governorSanjar al-Jawli in 1315, and under Mamluk rule, khans like the one in Qaqun were used by couriers on horseback, forming part of thepostal network on theGaza-Damascus road.[22][23]Al-Qalqashandi (d .1418) mentioned Qaqun as a pleasant, though not particularly prosperous town, with a mosque, a bath, a handsome fort, andwells.[24]
During earlyOttoman rule in Palestine, the revenues of the village of Qaqun were in 1557 designated for the newwaqf ofHasseki Sultan Imaret inJerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), the wife ofSuleiman the Magnificent.[25] By 1596, Qaqun was the center of thenahiya (subdistrict) of Qaqun underNablus Sanjak with a population of 19 households and 4 bachelors; an estimated 127 persons; allMuslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on a number of crops, includingwheat andbarley, as well as ongoats andbeehives; a total of 16,590akçe.[26]
DuringNapoleon'scampaign in 1799, the French forces defeated the Ottoman troops who had been sent to Qaqun to stop their advance towardsAcre.[27]Pierre Jacotin named the villageQaqoun on his map from the same campaign.[28]
In the 1830s, the inhabitants of Qanqun participated in therevolt against Egypt, and it was thence destroyed by the army ofIbrahim Pasha of Egypt during hisSyrian campaign (1832–1840).[29]In 1838 it was noted as a village,Kakon, in the westernEsh-Sha'rawiyeh administrative region, north ofNablus.[30]
In the late 19th century, Qaqun was described as a large village built around the central tower of the Crusader/Mamluk fort. Its houses, built of stone and mud, were dispersed over the surface of a hill. There was arable land in the surrounding area.[31]Claude R. Conder writes to have seen aCrusader-era tower in Qaqun during his visit there.[14]
In the1922 census of Palestine there were 1,629 villagers, 29 Christian males, and the rest Muslim,[32] decreasing in the1931 census to a population of 1367 Muslims, in a total of 260 houses.[33]
In the1945 statistics the population of Qaqun was 1,916, all Muslims,[3] with a total of 41,767dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.[4] Of this, Arabs used a total of 713dunums forcitrus andbananas, while 34,376 dunums were allocated to cereals; 210 additional dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 80 dunums were planted with olive trees,[34][35] while 137 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[36]
Just prior to the 1948 war, in addition to the mosque and fortress, Qaqun also housed an elementary school for boys and hundreds of homes for its more than 2,000 inhabitants.[37] The village families were made up of the Abu-Hantash, Zidan, al-Shaykh Ghanem, Matrouk, and al-Haficlans.[37]
| Battle of Qaqun | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of1948 Arab-Israeli War | |||||||
.jpg) War Memorial ofAlexandroni Brigade in Qaqun with Bible citation from Zephaniah 3:19 | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 IDF (Alexandroni Brigade) |  Iraq, Arab irregulars | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Col.Dan Even [he] (Alexandroni Brigade) Ben Zion Ziv (33rd Battalion) | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Reinforced battalion | Iraqi regulars, 200 irregulars[38] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 16[38] | |||||||
Qaqun was the victim of a "hit-and-run" raid carried out by theIrgun Zvai Leumi on 6 March 1948, according to theHistory of the Haganah. No further details are provided by this source, but the Palestinian newspaperFilastin reported an attack on the morning of 7 March. Quoting a communiqué issued by Palestinian militia forces, the paper said that the large attacking unit failed to penetrate the village, and that it threw a number of grenades which wounded two women.[39]
On 9 May 1948 the Alexandroni Arab affairs experts decided on a meeting inNetanya, in preparation for the declaration of Israeli statehood and the expected pan-Arab invasion, to immediately "expel or subdue" the inhabitants of the Palestinian villages ofKafr Saba,al Tira, Qaqun,Qalansuwa, andTantura.[40] The final operational order did not say what was to be done with the inhabitants, but repeatedly spoke of "cleaning" or "clearing" the village.[41]
After the establishment of the State of Israel and the outbreak of the1948 Arab–Israeli War, regular Iraqi forces entrenched in theTriangle region threatened to cut Israeli-controlled territory in half by capturingNetanya. An Iraqi attack was repelled on 29 May 1948, when Israeli forces successfully defended the villagesEin Vered,Kfar Yabetz andGeulim. Arab attacks originated inRas al-Ein,Tira,Qalansawe and Qaqun, and the capture of any of these was deemed likely to bring to an end the Iraqi effort in the Netanya area.[42]
Qaqun was chosen as the target of an Israeli offensive, and on 5 June at 04:00, the 33rd Battalion of theAlexandroni Brigade attacked the village. A frontal assault was conducted on the Iraqi headquarters to the north of the village, after the nearby mill was cleared. TheIsrael Defense Forces were only able to clear the village during the day, and used reinforcements from the 32nd Battalion atEin HaHoresh, which flanked the Arab forces from the south. Iraqi counter-attacks from Kalansawe and Tulkarem lasted until nightfall, with both sides bombing each other's positions from the air. Israeli forces were able to hold on to the village and put an end to Iraqi advances on the coastal plain.[42] Alexandroni suffered 16 casualties and by their estimate the entire Iraqi battalion was wiped out. According to the Alexandroni memorial website, the Iraqi defeat in the battle is considered its biggest of the war.[43]
However, according toBenny Morris, the attack was preceded by an artillery barrage that precipitated the evacuation of most of Qaqun's inhabitants to nearby groves.[44] And only a few local militiamen and several dozen Iraqi Army soldiers remained to fight and they were rapidly overwhelmed by the Alexandroni infantry.[45]
Two days later, on 7 June,Joseph Weitz noted Qaqun among the villages which they had to decide as to whether destroy (to prevent the villagers from returning), or renovate and settle with Jews.[46] By December 1948 theIDF General Staff\Operations approved the depopulation of the remaining small border-hugging sites ("khurab") inthe Triangle area. It was instructed that "an effort should be made to carry out the eviction [of Arab civilians] without force". But if force proved necessary, the Military Government was authorized to use it. Among the sites evicted was eight in the Qaqun and Gharbiya area.[47]
Kibbutzha-Ma´pil was built on what had traditionally been village land in 1945, 3 km to the northwest. Three settlements were founded on village land in 1949:Gan Yoshiyya, 1 km due south of the village site,Ometz, 1 km north of the site; and´Olesh, 4 km southwest of the site.Haniel was built on village land in 1950.Yikkon was built in the early 1950s to serve as a transit camp for new Jewish immigrants, and was later made into a regional school.Burgeta, built in 1949, is 5 km to the southwest but is not on village land.[6]
Walid Khalidi described the remaining structures of the village in 1992:
The fortress on top of the hill, a well that belonged to the family of Abu Hantash, and the school building are all that remain of the village. The fortress is surrounded by stone rubble and the remains of houses, and the school building is still used as a school by Israelis. Cactuses and an old mulberry tree grow south of the hill. The surrounding lands are covered by orchards. In addition, cotton, pistachios, and vegetables are grown on the lands. There is an Israeli fodder-processing factory northeast of the village site.[37][6]
The estimated number ofPalestinian refugees from Qaqun, as of 1998, was 14,034. This figure includes descendants of the original refugees.[37]
The Nature and Parks Authority and the Hefer Valley Economic Development Corporation recently ordered that the former site of Qaqun, its fortress and other ruins be declared anational park.[48] The plan is to rehabilitate the site and turn it into a "focal point that will draw tourism."[48]
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