Moslem villagers, of whom twenty families remained, who lived on terms of perfect amity with the Jews." A population list from about 1887 showed Ja’auneh to have about 930 inhabitants; 555 Muslims and 375 Druze. British Mandate era In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Ja'uneh had a population of 626; all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 799, still all Muslims, in a total of 149 houses. Felix Salten visited Rosh Pinna in 1924 and noted also Al-Ja’una in his travel book Neue Menschen auf alter Erde: “Right next to Rosh Pin[n]a, the Arab village Dzha’une. These early settlers still employ Arab workers, a practice that naturally had to cease within the new rebuilding movement. The Arabian children of Dzha’une all go to school that has been built for them by the settlement [of Rosh Pinna] and they are taught Hebrew there.” In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,150 Muslims, and the total land area was 839 dunums; 824 of which were owned by Arabs, 7 by Jews, and 8 public. Of this, 172 dunums were plantations and irrigable land, 248 used for cereals, while 43 dunams were built-up (urban) land. 1948 Arab-Israeli war, depopulation, and aftermath The village was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, the evacuation of the residents took place either in late April, or on 9 May, coinciding with the final attack on Safad. At midnight on 5–6 June 1949, the remaining villagers in Al-Ja'una (together with those of Al-Khisas and Qaytiyya) were surrounded by Israeli Defence Force units, who then forced the villagers into trucks "with brutality—with kicks, curses and maltreatment...." (according to Knesset member and Al HaMishmar editor Eliezer Peri) and left them on a hill near 'Akbara. When questioned about the expulsions, David Ben-Gurion responded that there was "sufficient" military justification. 'Akbara served as a "dumping spot" for the "remainders" from various depopulated Palestinian villages, and its conditions were to remain bad for years. Walid Khalidi, writing in 1992 about the remains of Al-Ja'una, stated: "The settlement of Rosh Pinna occupies the village site. Many of the houses remain; some are used by the residents of the settlement; other stone houses have been abandoned and destroyed." See also 1948 Palestinian exodus List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict Abdallah Al-Asbah References Bibliography (p. 71) External links Welcome To