Welcome To Kawfakha - كوفخة (כופח'ה)

District of Gaza Ethnically cleansed days ago	العربية Google Earth
	Gallery (8)

Statistic & Fact

Value

Occupation Date

May 25, 1948

Distance From District

19 (km) East of Gaza

Elevation

150 (meters)

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details

Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction

Map Location

See location #44 on the map

View from satellite

Military Operation

Possibly Operation Barak

Attacking Units

Negev Brigade

Defenders

Egyptian Army

Exodus Cause

Military assault by Zionist troops

Village Temains

The village has been completely obliterated with the exception of the village mosque (now functions as a horse stable)

Ethnically Cleansing

Kawfakha inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership

Ethnic Group	Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab	87
Jewish	0
Public	8,482
**Total	8,569

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
**Town Lands' Demarcation Maps

Land Usage
As of 1945

Land Usage	Arab (Dunum)*
Irrigated & Plantation	87
Planted W/ Cereal	7,768
Built up	31
Arable	7,855
Non-Arable	683

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Population

Year	Population*
1922	203
1931	317
1945	500
1948	580
Est. Refugees 1998	3,562

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Number of Houses

Year	Number of Houses
1931	56
1948	102

Near By Towns

Huj ↖		al-Jammama ↗
Gaza ←	Kawfakha	→ Beersheba Bedouins
↙ al-Muharraqa	↓ Beersheba Bedouins	↘ Beersheba Bedouins

Schools

Kawfakha had an elementary school for boys.

Inhabitants Place of Origin

In the 19th century, Kawfakha was founded by people from Gaza city.

Places of Warship

The village had a well known mosque, which functions now as a horse stable by a Jewish settler.

Nearby Wadies & Rivers

The village was situated on the southern bank of Wadi Abu Shunnar..

Archeological Sites

The village contained the remains of cisterns, marble columns, a Corinthian capital, mosaic walkways, and pottery

Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands

Nir 'Aqiva

Village Before Nakba

The village stood on a stretch of sandy, rolling land in the northern Negev. A network of secondary roads linked it to the highways between Gaza and Julis, which ran parallel to the coastal highway. Kawfakha was founded in the late nineteenth century by Gaza city residents who came to cultivate the surrounding land. At its center was a mosque that was well-known in the region, built during the reign of the Ottoman sultan Abd al-Hamid II (1876–1909). Houses were spread along a northwest–southeast axis in a rectangular pattern, adjacent to the southern bank of Wadi Abu Shunnar, a tributary of Wadi Hawdaj. Kawfakha had an elementary school and some small shops. Its inhabitants, who were Muslim, obtained water for domestic use from two wells inside the village. For agriculture, they relied on both rainfall and irrigation (from wells, cisterns, and reservoirs that collected rainwater in winter). They planted the land on the northern side of the village with fruit trees, such as apricots, olives, almonds, grapes, and figs, and grew grain on the other sides. In 1944/45 a total of 87 dunums was irrigated or used for orchards, and 7,768 dunums (of public land) were allotted to cereals. The village contained the ruins of Khirbat al-Kawfakha which included remnants of cisterns, marble columns, a Corinthian capital, mosaic walkways, and pottery.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

The village was raided by units of the Negev Brigade on the night of 27–28 May 1948, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris. The New York Times reported on 30 May that it had been captured along with the adjacent village of al-Muharraqa. The inhabitants were driven out of the village, although they had 'earlier repeatedly asked to surrender, accept Jewish rule and be allowed to stay, all to no avail.' Their request to remain in the village was denied by the Israeli authorities on the grounds that such requests were always 'either insincere or unreliable.'

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

The settlement of Nir 'Aqiva was established in 1953 on village lands, southwest of the village site.

Village Today

Only the mosque remains, and it is used as a storehouse for animal fodder and as a horse stable. It is a stone structure with arched entrances and windows on all sides; its roof is topped by three shallow domes. The site, which contains piles of rubble and is overgrown with cactuses and other desert plants, has been fenced in and serves as a pasture. There is a citrus grove west of it, and grain is grown by Israeli farmers on part of the surrounding land.

Source

Dr. Walid al-Khalidi, 1992: All That Remains.

Want to browse more? 80,000 pictures were grouped in these gallaries:

Display Name	Clan/Hamolah	Country of Residence
H.Joha	Joha	Bonn, Germany
محمد ابو عويلى	Al traben	Gaza city, Palestine
leena	-	gaza
al_jaser	al ramlawi	gaza, algeria
Alali	alali	jordan, 0962
naji zaza	-	-

All Registered Members

Kawfakha in www.WebGaza.net

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