Welcome To al-Sammu'i - السموعي (א-סמועי)

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

Value

Occupation Date

May 12, 1948

Distance From District

4 (km) West of Safad

Elevation

675 (meters)

Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Details

Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction

Map Location

See location #68 on the map

View from satellite

Military Operation

Operation Hiram

Exodus Cause

Influence of fall of, or exoduce from, neighboring town

Village Temains

The village has been completely destroyed, with the exception of some sections of stone walls, a well, and a canal

Ethnically Cleansing

The village has been mostly ethnically cleansed on 12th of May 1948

Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership

Ethnic Group	Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab	9,713
Jewish	0
Public	5422
**Total	15,135

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

Land Usage
As of 1945

Land Usage	Arab (Dunum)*
Irrigated & Plantation	422
Olive Groves	170
Planted W/ Cereal	4,204
Built up	27
Arable	4,626
Non-Arable	10,482

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Population

Year	Population*
1596	308
19th century	200
1922	173
1931	213
1945	310
1948	360
Est. Refugees 1998	2,208

*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics

Number of Houses

Year	Number of Houses
1931	39
1948	65

Near By Towns

	Mirun ↑ (N)	'Ayn al-Zaytun ↗
Bayt Jann ←	al-Sammu'i	→ al-Zahiriyya al-Tahta
		↘ al-Farradiyya

Places of Warship

One mosque

Shrines / Maqams

A shrine for a local sage known by al-Shaykh Muhammad al-'Ajami

Nearby Wadies & Rivers

The village had number of springs terminated into a water tank

Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands

Kefar Shammay and Amirim

Village Before Nakba

The village stood on the eastern slope of Mount Zabud, and overlooked Safad to the east. It was about 100 m west of the Safad-Acre highway. In 1596, al-Sammu'i was a village in the nahiya of Jira (liwa' of Safad) with a population of 308. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, and olives, as well as on other types of produce and property, such as goats, beehives, vineyards, and a press which was used for processing either olives or grapes. [Hut. and Abd.:177] The American biblical scholar Edward Robinson was told that al-Sammu'i lay on a 'comparatively level and easy' road when he passed through the region in the mid-nineteenth century. [Robinson 1856:72] Guérin, who saw the village in 1852, said that it was populated by 100 Muslims. When the authors of the Survey of Western Palestine reached the village, in 1877, it had 200 residents and was situated on a hill. There was a shrine for a Shaykh Muhammad al-'Ajami in the village as well as a number of cisterns. Many of al-Sammu'i's stone houses appeared to have been built of ancient materials. [SWP (1881) I:200,256]

The outline of al-Sammu'i was a narrow rectangle. The 'Arab al-Madariba Bedouin pitched their tents southeast of the village every year when they passed by it in the course of their migratory cycle. Al-Sammu'i had a mosque―its population was predominantly Muslim―and a number of springs. One of them, on the north side, supplied drinking water, which was stored in three water tanks built by the villagers. Fruit and olive orchards were planted on the land south of the village; in the 1942/43 season 170 dunums were planted with olive trees. In 1944/45 a total of 4,204 dunums was allotted to cereals and 422 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. Antiquities inspectors noted that there was a columned building in al-Sammu'i that was in ruins; this and other architectural fragments pointed to an earlier habitation of the site .

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

Israeli historian Benny Morris indicates that al-Sammu'i was wholly or partially evacuated in May 1948, but it was not occupied until October of that year. The initial flight, on 12 May, could have been caused by the fall of the city of Safad on the tenth of that month. This fact, together with the Haganah's psychological warfare campaign and mortaring of the villages in the area led to the exodus of many communities from the upper Galilee at this time. [M:123]

At the end of October, al-Sammu'i fell within a pocket formed by converging units of the Israeli army during Operation Hiram (see 'Arab al-Samniyya, Acre sub-district). According to Morris, the village put up some resistance to the Israeli attack. As evidence, he cites the Israeli Minority Affairs Ministry's reference to al-Sammu'i as an example of a village which resisted and was therefore 'depopulated ―either by flight or by partial flight plus expulsion.' No further details are given.

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

Israel established the settlement of Kefar Shammay (193262) in 1949 on village lands,just to the east of the village site. Also on village lands, but further to the south, was the settlement of Amirim (192260), founded in 1950.

Village Today

The site is deserted. All that remains of the buildings are some sections of stone walls, a well, and a canal. A few olive and fig trees grow on the site, and the surrounding land is mostly used by Israeli farmers for grazing.

Source

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

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