Arabic هرّاوي/عرب الحمدون Palestine grid 202/277 Date of depopulation 1948 | Subdistrict Safad Local time Friday 6:37 AM | |
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Weather 8°C, Wind SE at 10 km/h, 85% Humidity | ||
Harrawi (Arabic: هرّاوي/عرب الحمدون) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on May 25, 1948 by the Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach. It was located 18 km northeast of Safad.
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In 1948 it had a population of 290.
History
The settlers of Harrawi were descendants of Bedouin from the ‘Arab al-Hamdun tribe. There is evidence to suggest the village was inhabited as far back as the early Byzantine period, with ruins of Greek inscriptions, old walls, tessellated floors, and a wine-press.
Harrawi was located on a mountain peak in eastern Upper Galilee, overlooking the al-Hula Plain that linked it to the village of Qadas. The area is forested but much land was converted by the settlers for agricultural purposes, given that in 1945, 551 dunums of land was devoted to the farming of cereals. However, they were also employed in animal husbandry, and in the winter, the farmers of Harrawi would often migrate to the lowlands adjacent to the al-Hula Plain, to allow their animals to graze.
The village comprised a total area of 3,726 dunums of which 60% was run by Arabs and 40% by Jews.
A large number of inhabitants were employed in cereal farming, which dominated all of the area under cultivation.
Types of land use in dunums by Arabs in 1945:
The land ownership of the village before occupation in dunums:
1948 conflict and depopulation
Although it was in May 1948 that the village was depopulated, the Palestinian newspaper Filastin reported an incident that occurred in February 1948 when a bus carrying Arab passengers en route from al-Hula to Safad was ambushed at Harrawi on 12 February by a Zionist military unit. A mine exploded under the bus which was also subject to gunfire and firebombing, killing four people.
In mid May 1948, the village was defended by the Arab Liberation Army's Second Yarmuk Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. Adib Shishakli, who later served as president of Syria. The initial resistance was reported by the American newspaper New York Times in Damascus to have been a success, with the ALA claiming victories at Harrawi and al-Malikiyya, located 5 km to the northwest. However, any early successes were short-lived; Harrawi, along with the nearby villages of Mallaha and Baysamun fell to the Israeli Palmach's First Battalion of Operation Yiftach May 25.