Somewhat surprisingly, the two sources tend to complement each other. An Arab informer reported the following to the IDF: On Thursday, three Arabs from Ijzim were captured by the Jews in the fields of ’Ain Ghaza¯l near the road to Ijzim. One’s name is [the name is censored] and the other [the name is censored]. They left the third. Two weeks ago six Arabs were captured in the fields of Jaba’. Two were released and four have not returned yet.²¹ There were continuous negotiations and exchanges of prisoners all through the war. One of the   last  roadblock   events,  well   remembered   by   the  villagers   as   well   as   thoroughly documented in the Jewish archives, took place on the 6th of July, three weeks before the village fell. This is the incident’s description in an IDFA record: At 11:15 there was a fierce attack on the [Jewish] transportation on the ’Atlit–Zikhron Road. The attack was with heavy arms and machine guns and came from both sides of the road near Jaba’. The driver of the armored car, which was accompanying sixteen cars, was lightly wounded and two other passengers from the cars were also wounded. All were transferred to a hospital. At 11:15 a gunnery car arrived on the scene from Tel Aviv with a taxi. While they were near Jaba’, three armed Arabs were shooting at them. They replied with small arms. At that time a big convoy arrived from Haifa. It was stopped by heavy fire. A fuel carrier started to burn and blocked the road. The rest of the cars managed to escape to a safe place. It is assumed that some unarmed people jumped off the cars during the attack and hid in the fields of Jaba’. At 13:15 an armored car was sent by us from ’Atlit to Jaba’ and attacked the posts that face the road. There is an effort to find the people who may still be in the fields.²² During this assault a few Jews were taken captive. One of them was Perets Velvel Etkes who is mentioned both in the IDFA documents and in the oral accounts. Etkes was one of many prisoners but he became one of the more famous perhaps because of his previous post as an engineer in the British Public Works Department in Haifa. Etkes’ kidnapping crossed Ami¯n’s thoughts while he was telling me about the many cars and trucks that were captured on the road and were brought to the village. Ami¯n, born in Ijzim in 1934, lives in a village in Israel.^H Ami¯n: I remember one time when the fighters on the road brought a car loaded with poultry. . .. One time they brought maize. And I remember one time they caught someone named Etkes. He was driving, I think, a motorcycle, and they attacked him and he escaped into the cornfield near Jaba’ and they chased him and caught him as a prisoner, that is, he was taken to Ijzim. Abu¯ Na’i¯m, born in Ijzim in 1936, remembered Etkes as well. Abu¯ Na’i¯m lives in a village in Israel. We met twice at his home, which still resembles the homesteads of the past. In the space adjacent to the house Abu¯  Na’i¯m has a hen-coop, some sheep and goats.^H Abu ¯  Na’i¯m: There was one man named Etkes who was kidnapped. He passed on the coastal road with a car, I think in the area of ’Ein Carmel–Zerufa,²³  I am not sure. . .. They stopped his car and brought him. His wife was injured. I remember her, a fat woman. She was wounded in her hand. They made her a bandage from a piece of cloth and brought her. What’s this? [I thought to myself]. I saw this woman in this situation, [and felt] uneasy. Two people holding her and she. . .; her husband, they tied his eyes. So what do they want to do with her? She will die in their hands. And then people were quick, someone mounted a horse and ran to Dalia.²⁴ He brought [Druze] people, they placed her on a second horse and took her. And he [the husband] stayed at Ma¯qu ¯ra. The headquarters was in Ma¯qu ¯ra. Where did he stay? With Shari¯f. And who was his guard? My uncle, Murshid. . .; and I remember, he was the guard and they were in good relations. And I saw how they released him, through negotiations in ’Isfiyyeh. Shari¯f was a lawyer. Originally from Ijzim, he studied in Damascus and, upon his return, opened an office in Haifa. He owned a large plot of land adjacent to Ijzim from the east, which  he  turned  into  a  fruitful  orchard  known  as  al-Bayya¯ra  located  near  the  spring  of Ma¯qu¯ra. During the Arab Revolt, in 1937, an attempt to murder him led him to leave for two years and go to Beirut with his family. When he returned, he discovered that the rebels had destroyed his home and trees. Nevertheless, he chose to rebuild his farm, spending weekdays in  Haifa  practicing  law  and  the  weekends  at  his  Ijzim  farm.  Through  his  profession  he established close links with British officials as well as with influential Jews. On account of these alignments, he served as a mediator during the war, trying to achieve an agreement ANTHROPOLOGICAL HISTORIES OF A PALESTINIAN VILLAGE 17