Bayt Naqquba

Bayt Naqquba
Bayt Naqquba
Arabic	بيت نقّوبة
Name meaning	The house of the mountain pass
Also spelled	Beit Nakuba
Subdistrict	Jerusalem
Coordinates
Palestine grid	161/134
Population	278 (1948)
Area	2,979 dunams 2.9 km²
Date of depopulation	early April 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Beit Nekofa

Bayt Naqquba (Arabic: بيت نقّوبة‎‎, also known as Bait Naqquba) was a Palestinian village in British Mandate Palestine, located 9.5 kilometers west of Jerusalem, near Abu Ghosh. Before Palmach and Haganah troops occupied the village during Operation Nachshon on April 11, 1948 approximately 300 Palestinian Arabs lived there. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, a moshav named Beit Nekofa was founded close to the site by Jewish immigrants from Yugoslavia. In 1962, residents of Bayt Naqubba built a new village named Ein Naqquba, south of Beit Nekofa.

History

In the late nineteenth century, Bayt Naqquba was a village built on a slope with a spring to the south. Its residents were Muslims. They planted olive trees and vineyards, which grew mainly west of the village and on the valley floors, and irrigated their crops with water drawn from the village springs. Olive trees covered 194 dunum of land. In 1944/45 a total of 515 dunums was allocated to cereals; 303 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, including 194 dunums planted with olive trees.

1948, and after

Like the people of Abu Ghosh, the inhabitants of Bayt Naqquba were known for their friendly relations with their Jewish neighbors in Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim. Benny Morris writes: "It is possible that the inhabitants of Beit Naqquba had received both an order to evacuate from Arab military commanders in Ein Karim and "strong advice" to the same effect from Lisser and Navon. But it is likely that the "advice" given in the name of the Harel Brigade, which physically controlled the area, was more potent of the two factors in precipitating the evacuation." The village was taken around the 11 April 1948 during Operation Nachshon.

Between 1948 and 1964 the inhabitants of Bayt Naqquba lived at Sataf, "under trees, because the Arabs had not allowed them to come over their lines, out of distrust and revenge". Afterwards they were allowed to stay temporarily in Abu Ghosh. In 1962, they established a new village, Ein Naqquba on some of their land south of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway.

The village today

A few houses are used either as dwellings or as stables. These houses were built of stone and many had domed roofs. Stones recovered from the ruins of the village houses have been used as steps for entrances to new Jewish homes. Almond and olive trees and cactuses cover the village site. In what was probably a unique case among all the villages occupied and depopulated, a new Arab village with the same name was established south of the original site in 1962, and some refugees from the old village were allowed to live there. The old village cemetery lies about 0.5 km south of the village site. It is maintained by a more recent Arab village.

See also

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus
• Jerusalem District
• Arab localities in Israel

See also

• Welcome To 'Ayn Naquba
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Bayt Naqquba from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center