Wadi Ara وادي عارة | |
|---|---|
 Old Palestinian house of Wadi Ara, now part of KibbutzBarkai | |
| Etymology: Khurbet ez Zebadneh=The ruin if the people of Zebdah[1] | |
.jpg) 1870s map.jpg) 1940s map.jpg) modern map.jpg) 1940s with modern overlay mapA series of historical maps of the area around Wadi Ara, Haifa (click the buttons) | |
  Wadi Ara Location withinMandatory Palestine | |
| Coordinates:32°28′31″N35°01′55″E / 32.47528°N 35.03194°E /32.47528; 35.03194 | |
| Palestine grid | 153/209 |
| Geopolitical entity | Mandatory Palestine |
| Subdistrict | Haifa |
| Date of depopulation | February 27, 1948[4] |
| Area | |
• Total | 9,795dunams (9.795 km2; 3.782 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 75 m (246 ft) |
| Population (1945) | |
• Total | 230[2][3] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Fear of being caught up in the fighting |
| Current Localities | Ein Iron,Barkai[5] |
Wadi Ara (Arabic:وادي عارة) was aPalestinian village located 38.5 km south of the city ofHaifa. It is named after the nearby stream that is known in Arabic as Wadi 'Ara. The village was particularly small with a population of 230 and a land area of approximately 9,800dunums.
AtEn Esur (Hebrew) or 'Ein Asawir (Arabic), about 1km NW of Wadi Ara, a remarkably large settlement from the EarlyChalcolithic period, some 7,000 years ago, has come to light.[6] Its size (400dunams or 400,000 m²) and some elements of urbanisation might point to aproto-city, at a much earlier time than though possible in the region.[6]
Above the Chalcolithic settlement, a large walledEarly Bronze Age city of 650,000 m² (160 acres) covered the site, with up to 6,000 inhabitants – another unparalleled finding for the Southern Levant.[6]Tell el-Asawir, part of the wider En Esur site, contains burial caves dating from the fourth to the second millennium BCE.[7] The press release spoke of "the largest Bronze Agenecropolis in the world".[8]
Ceramics from the lateRoman,Byzantine, and early Muslim and Middle ages have been found at Khirbet ez-Zebadneh.[9][10]
The Muslim geographerIbn Khurdadhbi (d. 912) described it as a stopping place on the road betweenal-Lajjun andQalansuwa.[7]
In 1882, thePEF'sSurvey of Western Palestine described it a small hamlet known asKhurbet ez Zebadneh.[11]
During theBritish Mandate of Palestine, the village was classified as ahamlet in thePalestine Index Gazetteer.[7] In the1922 census of PalestineWadi Arah had a population of 68; allMuslims,[12] increasing in the1931 census to 81; still all Muslim, in a total of 18 houses.[13]
Themoshav ofEin Iron was built in 1934 on what were traditionally village lands.[14]
In the1945 statistics Wadi Ara had a population of 230 Muslims,[2] with a total of 9,795 dunams of land.[3] Of this, Arabs used 6,400 dunums of land forcereals,[15] while 1,446 dunams were classified as uncultivable land.[16]
During the1948 Arab-Israeli War the village was successfully defended byArab Liberation Army volunteers andIraqi forces patrolling the nearby city ofTulkarm. However, locals in the area experienced violence at the hands of Israeli forces; A member ofkibbutzBe'eri, assigned to the Guard Milices testified in a study undertaken by Israeli historianYitzhaki andUri Milstein: "We were in Wadi 'Ara. We raided a nearby Palestinian post and brought a prisoner for interrogation. A soldier beheaded him and scalped his head by knife. He raised the head on a pole to strike fear among Palestinians. Nobody stopped him."[17] Most non-Jewish residents were removed on February 27, 1948 prior to theofficial founding of the modern state of Israel, those remaining were removed by the end of July 1949.
In March 1949 as the Iraqi forces withdrew from Palestine and handed over their positions to the smaller Jordanian legion, three Israeli brigades manoeuvred into threatening positions in OperationShin-Tav-Shin in a form of coercive diplomacy. The operation allowed Israel to renegotiate the ceasefire line in the Wadi Ara area of the northern West Bank in a secret agreement reached on 23 March 1949 and incorporated into the General Armistice Agreement. Thegreen line was then redrawn in blue ink on the southern map to give the impression that a movement in the green line had been made.[18] Jordan ceded the entireWadi Ara region to Israel on May 3, 1949.
Following the area's incorporation into Israel, kibbutzBarkai was established on the site of Wadi Ara on May 10, 1949.[14] In 1992 Palestinian historianWalid Khalidi described the remaining structures on the village land: "Only two village houses remain, both on the eastern edge of the site. One of them has arched windows and a spiral staircase leading up to a room on the roof. The second has a large entrance that is used today as a gate for the kibbutz's swimming pool."[14]
Petersen inspected the remaining buildings in 1994, and described them as "a large rectangular building which appears to be of lateOttoman date. On the ground floor is a long hall (18.8m x 6.9m) roofed by three cross-vaults. On the upper floor is a large terrace and a single cross-vaulted room. South of this building are the remains of a high wall and a monumental gateway which now gives access to the Kibbutz swimming pool. It is likely that both buildings date to the latter part of the Ottoman period (i.e. 1880-1917)".[19]
