Info
District: Akka (Acre)
Population 1948: 1160
Occupation date: 31/10/1948
Jewish settlements on village/town land before 1948: None
Jewish settlements on village/town land after 1948: זרעית
Background:
The village was situated on the flat part of a plateau that rose gradually toward the west, bordered by a wide wadi. It overlooked its two satellites villages to the east: Suruh and al-Nabi Rubin. A network of secondary roads linked it to Ra's al-Naqura and some neighboring villages along the Lebanese border. It was located 27 km northeast of Acre.
After the completion of the Israeli army's Operation Hiram, at the end of October 1948, Israeli units swept into a number of villages near the border with Lebanon and expelled their inhabitants. Tarbikha was one of the first to be captured. Some time during the second week of November, the 'Oded Brigade entered the village and ordered its people to cross the border into Lebanon. The Israeli forces met with no resistance in the village, according to the account of the occupation in the History of the War of Independence. Nevertheless, Israeli historian Benny Morris quotes the Israeli commanding officer of the Northern Front as saying that his forces "had been forced for military reasons" to expel the villagers of Tarbikha, among others.
Morris states that by 27 May 1949, Jewish immigrants had been settled in the village, which was renamed Shomera. Even Menachem, established in 1960, is located very close to the village site. Kefar Rosenwald, established in 1967, and Shetula, founded in 1969, are also on village lands.
About twenty houses from the village are now occupied by the residents of Moshav Shomera. Some of the roofs have been remodeled and given a gabled form. Stones from the original houses embellish the roof of the central shelter of the moshav.
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