Qannir () was a
Palestinian village, located 35 kilometers south of
Haifa
Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...
. With 750 inhabitants in 1945, it was depopulated in the lead up to the
1948 Arab-Israeli war.
History
In the late
Ottoman era, Qannir appears on sheet 45 of
Jacotin's map drawn-up during
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
's
invasion in 1799.
In 1859, the English consul Rogers estimated the population to be 250, who cultivated 24
feddan
A feddan () is a unit of area used in Egypt, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the feddan is the only n ...
s of land. By 1882,
PEF's ''
Survey of Western Palestine'' described the place as a village of
adobe of moderate size, with one
well to the south, and another to the west. By a later account, the village consisted of stone houses built side by side.
[
A population list from about 1887 showed that ''el Kannir'' had about 665 inhabitants, all Muslim.
]
British Mandate era
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, Qannir had a population of 400; all 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 ...
s, increasing slightly in the 1931 census to 483, still all Muslims, in a total of 92 houses.[Mills, 1932, p]
94
/ref>
In the 1945 statistics the population was 750 Muslims[ with 10,826 dunums of land.][ Of this, a total of 5,760 dunums were used for cereals; while 460 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards,][ while 22 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
File:Qannir 1942.jpg, Qannir 1942 1:20,000
File:Qannir 1945.jpg, Qannir 1945 1:250,000
]
1948, and after
Between 22 and 24 April 1948, the women and children of Qannir started to evacuate the village, apparently on rab"orders from on high".
According to a dispatch sent by Fawzi al-Qawuqji to the rabHigh Command, an enemy attack from Ein Hashofeit started on 0400 on 8 May towards Quannir and Kafr Quari. The attackers were supported by armored cars. According to al-Qawuqji the attack was "resisted and repelled", with a result of one killed and four wounded on the Palestinian side.
However, according to Haganah sources, the forces of the Alexandroni Brigade "raided the village on 9 May 1948, killed four Arabs and blew up 55 houses". According to Morris, the remaining villagers probably left at this time.[Morris, 2004, p]
244
/ref> Following the war the area was incorporated into the State of Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
, with the kibbutz
A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
of Regavim established on the village's former lands in 1949.[
Khalidi described the place in 1992: ]''Stone rubble is strewn about the site, which is covered with thorns, fig trees, and cactus. Part of the adjacent land is used by Israelis as pasture and the other part is cultivated.''
References
Bibliography
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* al-Qawuqji, F. (1972)
Memoirs of al-Qawuqji, Fauzi
in '' Journal of Palestine Studies''
"Memoirs, 1948, Part I" in 1, no. 4 (Sum. 72): 27-58.
dpf-file, downloadable
**, dpf-file, downloadable
*
External links
Qannir
Zochrot
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8
IAA Wikimedia commons
from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
{{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War
Arab villages depopulated prior to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
District of Haifa