Arabic عرب الفقراء/الشيخ حلو Palestine grid 140/206 Current localities Hadera Current locality Hadera | Subdistrict Haifa Area 15 dunams Local time Tuesday 2:46 AM Date of depopulation 10 April 1948 | |
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Cause(s) of depopulation Expulsion by Yishuv forces Weather 17°C, Wind E at 10 km/h, 37% Humidity | ||
Arab al-Fuqara (Arabic: عرب الفقراء) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Haifa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on April 10, 1948. At that time, the land records of the village consisted of a total area of 2,714 Dunums, of which 2,513 were owned by Jews, and just 15 owned by Arabs, with the remainder being public lands (186 dunams).
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Location
The village was located 42 km southwest of Haifa, south of Wadi al-Mafjar and northwest of Hadera, in a flat, sandy area.
History
The Arab villagers were descendants of a section of the al-Balawina Bedouin tribe, whose primary territory was near Beersheba. The area was generally swampy and malarial, and this limited population growth until the mid-1920s.
The gradual and legal expansion of the Jewish town Hadera reduced the free public land available to the Arab villagers, until only a thin strip of land between Hadera and Wadi al-Mafjar was retained (15 dunams), where the land was considered non-cultivable.
The village population in 1945 was 310, all Muslims.
1948
On 6 April 1948, the Haganah implemented a new policy for the coastal plains, namely of clearing the whole area of its Arab inhabitants. On 10 April, the villagers of Arab al-Fuqara, together with the villagers of Arab al-Nufay'at and Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri, were ordered to leave the area.
The village today
The ground is now part of the northwestern area of Hadera.