Qumya (), was a Palestinian village of 510 inhabitants when it was depopulated prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Located 12.5 kilometers north of Baysan, the village was assaulted by the forces of the Golani Brigade on 26 March 1948 during Operation Gideon, on the orders of Yosef Weitz, a representative of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). Its inhabitants fled in fear of being caught in the fighting. Location The village was located 12.5 kilometers northwest of Baysan, on a hilltop. Together with the village of Shatta, it was considered the western gate to the plain of Baysan. History Qumya was well known for its archaeological sites, including Khirbat Qumya which contained rectangular structures, caves, and rock-hewn cisterns. About 800 meters south-west of the village was ’Ayn ’Jalud, an archaeological site where Roman artifacts, including milestones and a large pool cut in the rock, have been found. Ottoman era By 1596, under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Qumya was a farm under the administrative jurisdiction of Sanjak Lajjun. Pierre Jacotin named the village Kouni on his map from 1799. In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described the village of Qumya as located being located on a knoll in the middle of a valley, surrounded by gardens of prickly pear. British Mandate era In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the Mandatory Palestine authorities, Qumiyeh had a population of 401, all Muslims, decreasing in the 1931 census to 386, still all Muslims, in 88 houses. The village had one elementary school for boys. In 1945 the village had 440 Muslim inhabitants, with 4,898 dunums of land. Of this, a total of 4,205 dunums were used for cereals and 33 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, while 15 dunams was built-up land. 1948, and after In his diary, Weitz wrote of the inhabitants of Qumya and al-Tira in the Bisan valley on the 26 March 1948:"Not taking upon themselves the responsibility of preventing the infiltration of irregulars ... They must be forced to leave their villages until peace comes.Morris, 2004, p. 160, note #538 Meron Benvenisti noted that the JNF guided military operations to evacuate and expropriate the land of Palestinian villages in 1948, including that of Qumya. In writing of the capture and evacuation of Qumya and Endur (the biblical Endor), he wrote that, "The Jews were particularly interested in the village of Qumya, which was