Qaddita

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.

Qaddita
قدّيتا
Kaditta
Village
Etymology: from personal name[1]
1870s map
1940s map
modern map
1940s with modern overlay map
A series of historical maps of the area around Qaddita (click the buttons)
Qaddita is located in Mandatory Palestine
Qaddita
Qaddita
Location within Mandatory Palestine
Coordinates: 33°00′17″N 35°28′5″E
Palestine grid194/267
Geopolitical entityMandatory Palestine
SubdistrictSafad
Date of depopulationMay 11, 1948[2]
Area
 • Total2,441 dunams (2.441 km2 or 603 acres)
Population
 (1945)
 • Total240[3][4]
Cause(s) of depopulationInfluence of nearby town's fall
Current LocalitiesKadita

History

It is possible that the name "Qaddita" is an Arabic distortion of the Aramaic word kaddish.[5]

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. The population was 27 households, an estimated 149 inhabitants, all Muslims. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on wheat, barley, vineyards, beehives, and goats; a total of 4,030 akçe.[6][7]

The village appeared under the name of Kadis on the map that Pierre Jacotin compiled during Napoleon's invasion of 1799.[8]

The village was reported to be totally destroyed in the devastating Galilee earthquake of 1837.[9] In 1838, Robinson noted: "Kadita has many vineyards and fig trees in its neighbourhood, and was greatly injured by the earthquake".[10] He also noted it as a village located in the Safad district.[11]

In 1875, Victor Guérin found "only ten houses, inhabited by as many Moslem families. Cisterns cut in the rock prove that it is the site of an ancient place."[12]

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Kadditha: "a mud and stone village, containing about 200 Muslems, situated on the slope of a hill, with gardens of figs. There is a birket and spring."[13]

A population list from about 1887 showed Kadditha to have about 315 inhabitants; all Muslims.[14]

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.[5] In the 1922 census of Palestine, Qaddita had a population of 110; all Muslims,[15] increasing in the 1931 census to 170, still all Muslims, in a total of 32 houses.[16]

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.[5] In the 1945 statistics the population was 240 Muslims,[3] and the total land area was 2,441 dunums;[4] Of this, 150 dunums was plantations and irrigable land, 1,452 cereals,[17] while 31 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[18]

1948, and after

Like many other Palestinian 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.[5] Khalidi describes the remains of the village being "tombs from the cemetery and stone rubble from the destroyed homes".[19]

See also

References
  1. Palmer, 1881, p. 76
  2. Morris, 2004, p. xvi, village #46. Also gives cause of depopulation.
  3. Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 10
  4. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 71
  5. Khalidi, 1992, p.485.
  6. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p.175, cited in Khalidi, 1992, p.485.
  7. Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
  8. Karmon, 1960, p. 165
  9. "The earthquake of 1 January 1837 in Southern Lebanon and Northern Israel" by N. N. Ambraseys, in Annali di Geofisica, Aug. 1997, p.933
  10. Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, p. 367
  11. Robinson and Smith, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 134
  12. Guérin, 1880, p. 428; as given by Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p, 198
  13. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p, 198. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 485
  14. Schumacher, 1888, p. 188
  15. Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Safad, p. 41
  16. Mills, 1932, p. 109
  17. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 120
  18. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 170
  19. Khalidi, 1992, p.486.

Bibliography
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