Info
District: Safed
Population 1948: 450
Occupation date: 04/05/1948
Occupying unit: Hagana units
Jewish settlements on village/town land before 1948: None
Jewish settlements on village/town land after 1948: Kahal
Background:
al-Qudayriyya Before 1948
The village was located in the eastern Galilee Mountains in an area that sloped southeastward and overlooked Lake Tiberias. It lay about 1 km east of Wad al-’Amud, a perennial watercourse whose waters flowed from the vicinity of the city of Safad, n the north, down to Lake Tiberias, to the southeast. A shrine for a local sage, al-Shaykh al-Rumi stood at the center of the village. While the majority of the villagers were herdsmen, some were farmers. In 1944/45 they planted a total of 2,029 dunums in cereals. The shrine for al-Shaykh al-Rumis built next to an ancient ruin, Khirbat al-Nuwayriyya, that contained heaps of drafted masonry and rock-cut wine presses; these relics were a sign of Roman-Byzantine habitation.
Occupation and Depopulation
Haganah forces engaged in the occupation of eastern Galilee assaulted al-Qudayriyya on 4 May 1948, during Operation Yiftach (see Abil al-Qanih, Safd District). That attack resulted in the expulsion of the village’s population by the occupying units, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris, who gives no further details. The occupation of the village was also reported at the time by the commander of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA), Fawzi al-Qawuciji. In a cable sent the following day, he indicated that the ALA’s Second Yarmuk Battalion had defended the area The assault on the village was part of a sub-operation, Operation Matate (Broom), which was designed to “sweep” Palestinians out of an area in the Jordan Valley between the Jordan River and the north-south road. Morris presents evidence that some of the other villages seized in the same operation were almost immediately laid to waste by occupying Haganah units who were ordered to blow up their houses. The offensive came roughly a week before the capture of Safad and was carried out in part, to increase the pressure on the city before the final attack.
The devastation of the villages occupied during Operation Matate had a “tremendous psychological impact” on other communities in eastern Galilee, according to operational commander Yigal Allon.
Israeli Settlements on Village lands
The settlement of Kachal, built in 1980 on village land, is southeast of the village site.
The Village Today
The site is overgrown with wild grass and contains rubble from destroyed houses. A few structures still stand; one of them has an arched entrance, and the concrete lining of a well also remains. The surrounding land serves as pasture.
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Source: al-Khalidi, Walid (ed.). All that remains: the Palestinian villages occupied and depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington DC: 1992.
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