Qaddita
| Qaddita | |
|---|---|
  Qaddita | |
| Arabic | قدّيتا |
| Name meaning | from personal name[1] |
| Also spelled | Kaditta |
| Subdistrict | Safad |
| Coordinates | 33°00′20.12″N 35°28′01.32″E / 33.0055889°N 35.4670333°ECoordinates: 33°00′20.12″N 35°28′01.32″E / 33.0055889°N 35.4670333°E |
| Palestine grid | 194/267 |
| Population | 240[2] (1945) |
| Area |
2,441 dunams 20.0 km² |
| Date of depopulation | May 11, 1948[3] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Influence of nearby town's fall |
| Current localities | Kadita |
Qaddita (Arabic: قدّيتا, transliteration: Qaddîtâ) was a Palestinian Arab village of 240, located 4.5 kilometers (2.8 mi) northwest of Safad. It was captured and depopulated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, with some of its inhabitants expelled or fleeing to nearby Akbara where they live as internally displaced Palestinians and others to refugee camps in Lebanon or Syria.
History
It is possible that the name "Qaddita" is an Arabic distortion of the Aramaic word kaddish.[4]
Ottoman era
Qaddita was under the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and by 1596 it was administrated by the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira, part of Sanjak Safad. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, vineyards, beehives, and goats.[5][6] Qaddita had a population of 149 inhabitants in 1596.[5]
The village appeared under the name of Kadis on the map that Pierre Jacotin compiled during Napoleon's invasion of 1799.[7]
The village was reported to be totally destroyed in the devastating Galilee earthquake of 1837.[8]
In the late 19th century, it was a small densely populated village consisting of ten houses built of stone and mud. The slope on which it was located was covered by gardens and fig trees. The population was roughly 200.[9]
British Mandate era
Under the rule of the British Mandate in Palestine, Qaddita expanded north and south, its houses were clustered together, and built of stone.[4] In the 1922 census of Palestine, Qaddita had a population of 110; all Muslims,[10] increasing in the 1931 census to 170, still all Muslims, in a total of 32 houses.[11]
Its economy was based on animal husbandry and crop cultivation, mainly grains, figs, pomegranates, and grapes as well as olives which by 1943 covered 77 dunams.[4] In 1945 the population was 240, and the total land area was 2,441 dunums;[2] Of this, 150 dunums was plantations and irrigable land, 1,452 cereals,[12] while 31 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[13]
1948, and after
Like many other Arab villages in the eastern Galilee, Qaddita was evacuated a day after Safad fell to the Israelis during Operation Yiftach on May 10. Some villagers were evicted to the village of Akbara, south of Safad, where they, according to Walid Khalidi, lived under harrowing circumstances. No Jewish towns were built on village lands.[4] Khalidi describes the remains of the village being "tombs from the cemetery and stone rubble from the destroyed homes."[14]
See also
References
- ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 76
- 1 2 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 71
- ↑ Morris, 2004, p. xvi, village #46. Also gives cause of depopulation.
- 1 2 3 4 Khalidi, 1992, p.485.
- 1 2 Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p.175, quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p.485.
- ↑ Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
- ↑ Karmon, 1960, p. 165
- ↑ "The earthquake of 1 January 1837 in Southern Lebanon and Northern Israel" by N. N. Ambraseys, in Annali di Geofisica, Aug. 1997, p.933
- ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p, 198. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 485
- ↑ Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Safad, p. 41
- ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 109
- ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 120
- ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 170
- ↑ Khalidi, 1992, p.486.
Bibliography
- Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
- Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, Herbert H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 1. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
- Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Centre.
- Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
- Karmon, Y. (1960). "An Analysis of Jacotin's Map of Palestine" (PDF). Israel Exploration Journal. 10 (3,4): 155–173; 244–253.
- Khalidi, Walid (1992). All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
- Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
- Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
- Palmer, E. H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Rhode, Harold (1979). Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century. Columbia University.
External links
- Welcome to Qaddita
- Qaddita, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
- Qaddita, Dr. Khalil Rizk
- Survey of Western Palestine, Map 4: IAA, Wikimedia commons
