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Welcome To Qaqun - قاقون (קאקון)

District of Tulkarm
Ethnically cleansed days ago

العربية

Google Earth
Picture for Qaqun Village - Palestine: : مدرسة قاقون عام 1938 (من اليمين الشيخ عبدالغني عرفةو المدير حيدر سعيد والاستاذ عادل غزال)، اُنقر الصورة لتكبيرها.
Gallery (253)
Statistic & Fact Value
Occupation Date June 5, 1948
Distance From District 6 (km) Northwest of Tulkarm
Elevation 25 (meters)
Before & After Nakba, Click Map For Detailswhat's new
Pre-Nakba Map showing before and after destruction
Pre-Nakba Aerial Viewwhat's new
Pre-Nakba Aerial View
Map Location See location #7 on the map

View from satellite
Military Operation Coastal Clearing
Attacking Units Third Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade
Defenders Iraqi Army fought like men possessed according to the New York Times. They fought to the last man in three defensive trench lines. Unconfirmed report claimed a whole battalion was obliterated (45 soldiers), God bless them all. See interview with Mr. Budeir for detailed account of this battle.
Exodus Cause Military assault by Zionist troops
Village Temains Qaqun was mostly destroyed with the exception Qaqun's boys school.
Ethnically Cleansing Qaqun inhabitants were completely ethnically cleansed.
Clans The clans of al-Hafi, Abu-Hantash and al-Shaykh Ghanem.
Pre-Nakba
Land Ownership
Ethnic Group Land Ownership (Dunums)*
Arab 35,611
Jewish 4,642
Public 1,514
**Total 41,767
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
**Town Lands' Demarcation Maps
Land Usage
As of 1945
Land Usage Arab (Dunum)* Jewish (Dunum)*
Citrus Groves 713 1,576
Irrigated & Plantation 210 33
Olive Groves 80 0
Planted W/ Cereal 34,777 3,032
Built up 144 0
Arable 35,700 4,641
Non-Arable 1,281 1
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Population
Year Population*
1596 127
1922 1,367
1931 1,367
1945 1,970
1948 2,285
Est. Refugees 1998 14,034
*Sourced from British Mandate's Village Statisitics
Number of Houses
Year Number of Houses
1931 260
1948 434
Near By Townswhat's new
Zayta
       
Wadi Qabbani  
   Dayr al-Ghusoun
           
Umm Khalid

Tulkarm
           
Shuweika
Town's Name Through History The Crusades referred to Qaqun by Quaquo.
Schools Qaqun had an elementary school for boys, which was founded during the British Mandate period which is still standing.
Places of Warship One Mosque
Archeological Sites Qaqub contained a Crusades fort and a Mamluk Mosque, see Pictures section for details.
Exculsive Jewish Colonies
Who Usurped Village Lands
Kibbutz ha-Ma'pil, Gan Yoshiyya, Ometz, and Yikkon.
Featured Video

Village Before Nakba

The village stood on a hill overlooking the Qaqun Plain. It was dominated by the city of Tulkarm, to the southeast. The Tulkarm-Haifa railway passed 0.5 km to the east, and secondary roads linked it to Tulkarm and neighboring villages. Qaqun was considered an important historical site that included a fortress built by the Crusaders. During the Crusade period it fell within the administrative jurisdiction of Qisarya (Caesarea) and suffered a great deal of destruction. It was known then under various names: Quaquo, Chaco, and Caco. In 1267 it was captured by the Mamluk sultan Baybars (1259-1277), who ordered its fortress rebuilt and had its church renovated and made into a mosque. Its markets were re-established, and it soon became a commercial center with a khan (caravansary) for merchants, travelers, and their animals. Under the Mamluks, the Crusader fortress was renovated and the village became a postal station on the Gaza-Damascus road. AI-Qalqashandi (d. 1418) mentioned it as a pleasant, though not particularly prosperous, town with a mosque, a bath, a handsome fort, and wells.

In 1596, Qaqun was the center of the nahiya of Qaqun (liwa' of Nablus) with a population of 127. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, as well as on other types of produce, such as goats and beehives. In 1799, Napoleon's forces defeated the Ottoman troops who had been sent to Qaqun to stop their advance towards Acre. Qaqun was destroyed a second time (the first time having been at the hands of the Crusaders) by the Egyptian army under Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Muhammad 'Ali, during his Syrian campaign (1831-1840), because the inhabitants participated in the rebellion against Egypt. In the late nineteenth century, Qaqun was a large village built around the central tower of the Crusader/Mamluk fort. Its houses, built of stone and mud, were dispersed over the surface of the hill. There was arable land in the surrounding area.

The people of Qaqun were Muslims. They worshipped in a mosque at the center of the village, next to the main market. They relied on wells for potable water. An elementary school for boys was established in the village during the British Mandate. Agriculture was based on watermelons, vegetables (such as cucumbers), olives, citrus, and grain. In 1944/45 a total of 713 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 34,376 dunums were allocated to cereals; 210 additional dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 80 dunums were planted with olive trees. The remains of the Crusader/Mamluk fortress and the Mamluk mosque, as well as architectural fragments of other structures, could be seen in the village.

Village Occupation and Ethnic Cleaning

Qaqun was the victim of a 'hit-and-run' raid carried out by the Irgun Zvai Leumi on 6 March 1948, according to the History of the Haganah. No further details are provided by this source, but the Palestinian newspaper Filastin reported an attack on the morning of 7 March. Quoting a communiqué issued by Palestinian militia forces, the paper said that the large attacking unit failed to penetrate the village, and that it threw a number of grenades which wounded two women.

In early May, the village was one of the last remaining coastal communities along the stretch north of Jaffa. Haganah intelligence officers met on 9 May to decide its fate. They agreed to 'expel or subdue' Qaqun and a handful of other villages on the coastal plain, according to Haganah records consulted by Israeli historian Benny Morris. But it appears that this plan was not implemented immediately, since the village was occupied the following month in an offensive launched specifically to capture it. About a week before the first truce of the war, the Israeli command apparently decided that it had insufficient forces to occupy the town of Tulkarm, so it turned its attention to smaller targets like Qaqun.

The History of the War of Independence states that the village was attacked on the night of 4-5 June 1948, mainly by the Third Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade. The two-pronged attack began with heavy mortar and artillery fire and met with resistance from Iraqi army units defending the village's northern approaches. By daybreak, a large proportion of the Iraqi defenders still held their fortified positions, but a 'violent attack in the light of day decided the battle' in favor of the attackers, according to the Israeli account. The New York Times called the battle 'one of the bloodiest to date' and reported that the Iraqi defenders had taken up positions in three lines of trenches just outside the village: 'It was here that the real battle took place. [The Iraqis] … refused to give ground and for several hours fought like men possessed. It was hand-to-hand warfare with both sides using knives, throwing grenades or bashing heads with rifle butts.' The official Israeli version is that an entire Iraqi battalion (450 men) had been wiped out in the encounter, while initially estimating its own losses at 12 dead. It also said that both sides had used their air forces in the battle. 'All other Israeli attempts to occupy Arab villages failed [in this area],' according to the History of the War of Independence. But skirmishes continued around Qaqun for several days.

A mere two days after its occupation, on 7 June, a top official of the Jewish National Fund was considering the question of whether the village should be destroyed. But this plan was not implemented immediately, for some of the village's inhabitants remained in their homes at least until July 1949, when Israeli leaders were warned by the international community not to expel them. Referring to Qaqun and a number of other villages, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett noted on 28 July: 'This time ... the Arabs learned the lesson; they are not running away. It is not possible in every place to arrange what our boys engineered in Faluja [where] they chased away the Arabs after we signed an ... international commitment.'

Zionists Colonies on Village Lands

Kibbutz ha-Ma'pil (148198) was built on what had traditionally been village land in 1945, 3 km to the northwest. Three settlements were founded on village land in 1949: Gan Yoshiyya (149195), 1 km due south of the village site; Ometz (149197), 1 km north of the site; and 'Olesh (149192), 4 km southwest of the site. Channi'el (145193) was built on village land in 1950. Yikkon (150196), built in the early 1950s to serve as a transit camp for new Jewish immigrants, was later made into a regional school. Burgeta (146192), built in 1949, is 5 km to the southwest but is not on village land.

Village Today

The fortress on top of the hill, a well that belonged to the family of Abu Hantash, and the school building are all that remain of the village. The fortress is surrounded by stone rubble and the remains of houses, and the school building is still used as a school by Israelis. Cactuses and an old mulberry tree grow south of the hill. The surrounding lands are covered by orchards. In addition, cotton, pistachios, and vegetables are grown on the lands. There is an Israeli fodder-processing factory northeast of the village site.

Source

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

Related Maps Town Lands' Demarcation Maps
خرائط للقضاء توضح حدود القرى والاودية
Town's map on MapQuest
View from satellite
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More Information مخطط البلد
في كتاب كي لا ننسى
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في كتاب النكبة والفردوس المفقود
المزيد من موقع هوية

Bibliography and References

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

Display Name Clan/Hamolah Country of Residence
محمد عبدالقادر محمد ابودية الزحازحة عمان, الاردن
farahk فرح الدوحة قطر
سارة الحيحي الجمايلة طولكرم
علي قاقوني - -
يزن سارة الجمايلة الرياض-السعودية
حسام - نابلس, نابلس
رنا محمد الجمايلة -
اسامة ذيب محمد مرعي Germany
نافز درويش درويش الاردن
وضاح زيدان الجمايلة طولكرم, فلسطين
Eyad abd alfattah Farah Farah Texas, USA
احمد حسين محمد عساف عساف -
صادق - الكويت
Ibrahim Abu Hantash أبو هنطش Qatar, Palestine
Amani Abu Hantash - amman, jordan
بلال محمد محمد درويش درويش ألاردن , ألاردن
ايهاب محمد محمد درويش درويش ألاردن , ألاردن
علاء كنعان زحازحة tulkarm, فلسطين طولكرم
محمد إيهاب محمد أبودية الزحازحة عمان, الأردن
AHMAD Ehab Abudayyeh الزحازحة Amman, Jordan
mariam abu hantash abu hantash kuwait, kuwait
Bahia Ahmed Moukahal Moukahal Amman
معاذ درويش -
abdalla sholi SHOLI Jordan
قاقون - -
جواد ساره الجمايله Ontario, Canada
يوسف قوزح قوزح عمان, الاردن
عامر يوسف الحافي الحافي Dubai, UAE
Bisher AL Hafi U.A.E , Dubai
تامر الحاج علي الحاج علي فلسطين, طولكرم
محمد عادل ابراهيم ساره جمايله السعوديه
M Nasrallah - Irbid, jordan
dark cat - amman, jordan
Gheyath Nasrallah Nasrallah Nova Scotia, Canada
Emad Sara الجمايلة Dubai , UAE
شيماءالحيحي الجمايلة طولكرم
علاء الحيحي الحيحي -
3bed abu dayyeh jordan
محمد يوسف محمد اجعيم - الحصن, الاردن
Bilal Darweesh Jordan, Jordan
abu hamza Abu hantash jordan- amman
مصطفى صادق حسن شربجي شربجي amman, jordan
basel - skهne, sweden
Rasha Othman الجمايلة Amman, Amman
ENGNNER_ahmed mohmmed abu_hantash - BOSTON, BOSTON
احمد ابوهنطش - -
يوسف اجعيم -
Al Mukahhal Al Mukahhal Dhahran, KSA
أبو هنطش أبو هنطش فلسطين, فلسطين
baha nasrallah nasrallah amman, jordan
nabil abu-hantash abu-hantash amman, jordan
ككوني بدر الضفة , فلسطين
Mahmoud Rafik Abu Hantash - Denmark, Denmark
طارق بدير Budair Amman, Jordan
بلال شلبي الشلبي طولكرم
جمعية قاقون الخيرية جمعية قاقون طولكرم , طولكرم
Mustafa Ibrahim Zaidan Zaidan -
علاء ابوهنطش U.A.E, U.A.E
عبدالقادر زيدان جمايلة طولكرم, فلسطين
Rashad Abu Hantash Abu Hantash Nablus
سعيد نصرالله نصرالله عمان, الاردن
ابو عرفه عرفه نابلس, قاقون
ابو انس - -
محمد الحافي الحافي -
Bilal Assaf - -
saher kaddarah kaddarah amman, jordan
houji houji -
Osama Al-Hafi - -
mohammad rafiq abuhantash abuhantash jodan, amman
Sami Mustafa Budair - -
SAED A.Alhafi Alhafi -
Basil Othman Othman Amman, Jordan
Haytham Abu Hantash - U.S.A.
Nedal Abu Hantash Abu Hantash Amman, Jordan
Sana Abou-Hantash Abou-Hantash -
yousef Mohamed Yousef abu hantash - Guandong, china
Ahmad Moh'd Azzam Iqab Abu Hantash Abu Hantash Dubai, United Arab Emirates
emad abu hantash abu hantash la, u.s.a
dr hantash ABU HANTASH JERUSALEM, PALESTINE
ayda abu hantash abu hantash il, usa
Nahi Mahmoud Abou Hantash Odense Nط, Denmark
ayman abu hantash abu hantash amman, jordan
GHASSAN ABU HANTASH ABU HANTASH LA., U.S.A
John Qaqundah Qaqundah -
issam nasralla NASRALLA sharja, U A E
Ihab Abu Dayyeh Abu Dayyeh -
Raed Abusara Abusara (sara) Texas, Texas
Majed Mohd Sabri Shouli shouli Qatar, Qatar
Farouk Abu Hantash Abu Hantash Jordan, Jordan
riaad al-sholee alsholee amman, jordan
mohammad mahmoud Abu hantash - -
mirza aijaz baig - MAHARASHTRA, INDIA
ibrahim Abu hantash - -
Tareqhantash Abu-Hantash Amman, Jordan
ADNAN ABU HANTASH ABU HANTASH -
Malath Shohadeh Darweesh Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia
Khalid Mansour Ghanem Ghanem CO, USA
Abu Sous - ببب, ببب
Tawfiq Abu-Hantash Abu-Hantash -
Paletini Alhafi UAE
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