entirely surrounded by JNF land..." Benny Morris puts 26 March 1948 as depopulation day, and noted "Fear of fighting" as reason. Rosemarie Esber interviewed villager Ayshi Mahmud Khalid who recalled that the villagers left together on the 26th: "Some left for Nazareth and some left for Jordan. We were afraid of Jewish attacks....On our way we passed by Ma’oz settlement. Jewish women came to search us and stole our money....the Jews stole even our livestock". The Qumya villagers ended up in Baysan, from where they were expelled in May, 1948, with the rest of the Palestinian inhabitants. In an Israeli cabinet meeting on June 16, 1948, Aharon Zisling seems to argue that the Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return. However, he made an exception for the villagers Qumya, the lands of which overlooked his own home in Ein Harod. By July, 1948, Ein Harod formally asked for the land of Qumya to be given them. Following the war the area was incorporated into the State of Israel. Kibbutz Bet ha-Shittah and the Gush Nuris villages were given thousands of dunams of land from Qumya and the neighbouring villages of al-Murassas, Kafra, Yubla, and Zir'in by the Histadrut's Agicrultural Center in July and October 1948. The Jewish kibbutz of Ein Harod was built on what traditionally was the village lands in 1921. In the 1950s it split in two; Ein Harod (Ihud) and Ein Harod (Meuhad), where Ein Harod (Ihud) is on Qumya land, while Ein Harod (Meuhad) is on land traditionally belonging to Tamra. Geva is about 2 km. west of the village site, but not on village land. In 1992, Walid Khalidi described the remaining village structures, noting:"The whole site is fenced in. Almond, mulberry, and pomegranate trees and cactuses grow around the rubble that dots the village site. Cypress trees grow among the ruins of the village school." See also Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel References Bibliography External links Welcome to Qumya Qumya, Zochrot Survey of Western Palestine, Map 9: IAA, Wikimedia commons Qumya, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Baysan