Welcome To Qaytiyya - قيطية (קיטיה)

District of Safad Ethnically cleansed days ago	العربية Google Earth
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Statistic & Fact

Value

Occupation Date

May 19, 1948

Distance From District

28 (km) North East of Safad

Elevation

75 (meters)

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details

Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction

Map Location

See location #14 on the map

View from satellite

Military Operation

Operation Yiftach (commanded by the ethnic cleansing champion Yigal Allon)

Attacking Units

The Palmach's First Battalion

Exodus Cause

Haganah 'Wispering' campaign (psychological warfare)

Village Temains

Mostly destroyed with the exception of few stone houses

Ethnically Cleansing

Mostly ethnically cleansed as a result of a campaign of psychological warfare on the 19th of May 1948. Completely ethnical cleansed in June 1949

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership

Ethnic Group	Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab	4,682
Jewish	183
Public	525
**Total	5,390

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

Land Usage
As of 1945

Land Usage	Arab (Dunum)*	Jewish (Dunum)*
Citrus Groves	19	0
Irrigated & Plantation	4,465	183
Planted W/ Cereal	44	0
Built up	93	0
Arable	4,528	183
Non-Arable	586	0

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Population

Year	Population*
1931	824
1945	940
1948	1,090
Est. Refugees 1998	6,696

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Number of Houses

Year	Number of Houses
1931	163
1948	215

Near By Towns

al-Zuq al-Tahtani ↖	al-Khisas ↑ (N)	al-Mansura ↗
al-Khalisa ←	Qaytiyya	→ al-'Abisiyya
	↓ Abu Sinan

Nearby Wadies & Rivers

The village was bordering both the Hasibani and the Dan Rivers

Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands

Kefar Blum and Beyt Hillel are near by village lands

Village Before Nakba

The village was built on flat land between the al-Hasibani and the Dan rivers (both tributaries of the Jordan), in the northern segment of the al-Hula Plain. A secondary road linked it to the neighboring village of al-Khalisa, located 3 km to the west on a highway that led to Safad. Qaytiyya was divided into two quarters: an eastern quarter on the west bank of the al-Dan River, and a western quarter on the east bank of the al-Hasibani River. The houses of the eastern quarter were clustered together, while those of the western quarter were more widely dispersed. The population of Qaytiyya was predominantly Muslim. The villagers earned their living mainly from agriculture and animal husbandry. In 1944/45 a total of 19 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 44 dunums were allocated to cereals; 4,465 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. The village also had its own grain mill on the bank of the al-Dan River.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

The displacement of the villagers of Qaytiyya is attributed to the campaign of psychological warfare that the Haganah waged as part of Operation Yiftach (see Abil al-Qamh, Safad sub-disctrict). Israeli historian Benny Morris writes that the villagers left on 19 May 1948, but at least some of the people of Qaytiyya remained in their village until June 1949. [M:123] However, at midnight on 5 June, army trucks encircled the village and Israeli troops swept down on it. They rounded up its residents and dumped them, together with the villagers of al-Ja'una and al-Khisas, on a bare hillside near 'Akbara, south of Safad. This raid on the three villages caused a stir among some left-wing Israelis. One Knesset member from the Mapam party said the Palestinian villagers were treated 'with brutality... with kicks, curses and maltreatment.' The Israeli army justified its brutality by claiming that they had learned that Syrian intelligence was trying to win the allegiance of the villagers and 'use them against us,' in the words of an intelligence official. For this reason, it was important to move them 'away from the border.' Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said that he found the military's reasons 'sufficient.' It is not clear what became of the villagers of Qaytiyya, but Morris states that conditions at 'Akbara, where they had been left, 'remained bad for years.' [M:242]

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

Zionists founded the settlement of Kefar Blum (207286) to the south of the village in 1943 on lands that belonged to Qaytiyya. Beyt Hillel (206290), founded in 1940, was closer to the village site than Kefar Blum but was not on village lands. When the settlement was extended in 1948 it may have absorbed some of these lands.

Village Today

Only a few stones from the old village are still visible. The surrounding land is cultivated, except for a small section that contains stone rubble and is overgrown with thorny plants and eucalyptus trees.

Source

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

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Hesham Mohammad	Mohammad	Syrien, Syria

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