Al-Samra () was a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

village in the Tiberias Subdistrict. It was depopulated on April 21, 1948, during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. It was located 10 km southeast of

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

History

The village had a mosque and several ''khirbas'' (ruined sites) including ''Khirbat al-Tawafiq'' and ''Khirbat Duwayraban''.

Late Ottoman period

In the early 19th century,

Johann Ludwig Burckhardt Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt (24 November 1784 – 15 October 1817) was a Swiss traveller, geographer and Orientalist. Burckhardt assumed the alias ''Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah'' during his travels in Arabia ...

noted it as the only village on the eastern shore of Lake Tiberias, and that it had some ancient buildings. In 1838, Edward Robinson was told that the village, ''Khurbet es-Sumrah'', was on the eastern shore of the lake. The villagers were

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

. In 1875,

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...

found here large ruins, which he misidentified as

Hippos A hippo or hippopotamus is either of two species of large African mammal which live mainly in and near water: * Hippopotamus * Pygmy hippopotamus Hippo or Hippos may also refer to: Toponymy * The ancient city of Hippo Regius (modern Annaba, Alg ...

. A population list from about 1887 showed ''es Samr (east shore)'' to have about 180 inhabitants; 20

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

and 160 Muslims. In 1914, an Ottoman airplane, on its way from Istanbul to Cairo, crashed by the village. Two pilots were killed. There is an Ottoman memorial to the event, about 1,5 km east of the village site. Yüzbaşı Fethi Bey, one of the first pilots of the Ottoman Air Force, was one of the pilots killed.

British Mandate period

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, the population of Samra was 157 Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 237; 232 Muslims and 5 Baháʼís, in a total of 50 houses. In the 1945 statistics, ''Es Samra'' had a population of 290; 280 Muslims and 10 classified as others, with 6,912

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s of Arab-owned land. Of this, 30 dunams were used for citrus and bananas, 21 for plantations and irrigable land, 6,828 dunams for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
123
/ref> while 23 dunams were classified as built-up area.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
173
/ref>

1948, aftermath

Ein Gev - Al Samra - Al Hamma Demilitarized Zone

The village became depopulated on April 21, 1948.Morris, 2004, p
513
notes #56, 57, p
539
/ref> HaOn was established on village land, north of the village site, in 1949. In 1992,

Walid Khalidi Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...

described the village site: "Nothing remains of the village houses. A tourist resort, which consists of a few cabins and small houses, has been established on part of the village site. Other parts of the site are covered with trees. The surrounding land is cultivated by Israelis."

References

Sources

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External links

Welcome To al-Samraal-Samra
Zochrot {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Tiberias