Qaqun
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| Qaqun | |
| Arabic | قاقون |
| Also Spelled | Quaquo, Caco |
| District | Tulkarm |
| Population | 1,970 (1945) |
| Jurisdiction | 41,767 dunams |
| Date of depopulation | 5 June 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Jewish forces |
| Current localities | Kibbutz ha-Ma'pil, Gan Yoshiyya, Ometz, Yikkon |
Qaqun (Arabic:قاقون, known to the Crusaders as Quaquo or Caco) was a Palestinian village located 6 kilometres northwest of the city of Tulkarem, at the only entrance to Mount Nablus (Samaria) from the coastal plain of Sharon.[1]
Continuously inhabitated by Arabs since at least as early as the Mamluk period,[2] Qaqun was depopulated during a military assault by Israeli forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
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[edit] History
Assyrian monuments and documents have been discovered in Qaqun.[3]
The site of a Mamluk era mosque and a Mamluk and Crusader era fortress between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, Qaqun was the capital of one of six districts that made up the province of as-Sham, the Mamluk administrative unit for Palestine.[4] Qaqun, Gaza, and Lyyda also appeared to be independent provinces later in this period.[4]
While early scholarship often attributed the construction of the fortress to Crusaders, both the fortress and mosque at Qaqun are now thought to have built during the reign of the Mamluk sultan Ruqn al-Din Baybars (1267 - 1271), who also built an administrative center and large market there.[2]
In December of 1271, as Baybars was battling the Mongols in Aleppo, the Crusader forces of King Edward raided Qaqun, but were quickly fought back by the forces of the Mamluk emirs.[5]
[edit] 1948 war
Just prior to the 1948 war, in addition to the mosque and fortress, Qaqun also housed of an elementary school for boys and hundreds of homes for its more than 2,000 inhabitants.[6] The village families were made up of the al-Hafi, Abu-Hantash and al-Shaykh Ghanem clans.[6]
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Qaqun was captured by Israel's Alexandroni Brigade from Iraqi Army volunteers on June 5 1948 as a part of a coastal clearing operation.[6] According to the New York Times, an Iraqi battalion of 45 men defending the village fought in three defensive trenches, "like men possessed," to the last man.[6]
[edit] Today
Walid Khalidi describes the remaining structures of the village as follows:"The fortress on top of the hill, a well that belonged to the family of Abu Hantash, and the school building are all that remain of the village. The fortress is surrounded by stone rubble and the remains of houses, and the school building is still used as a school by Israelis.[6]
The estimated number of Palestinian refugees from Qaqun, as of 1998, was 14,034.[6]
The Nature and Parks Authority and the Emeq Hefer Economic Development Corporation recently ordered that the former site of Qaqun, its fortress and other ruins be declared a national park.[7] The plan is to rehabilitate the site and turn it into a "focal point that will draw tourism."[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Ahmad Hasan Joudah (1987). Revolt in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: The Era of Shaykh Zahir Al-'Umar. Kingston Press, 69. ISBN 0940670119.
- ^ a b Meron Benvenisti (2000). Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. University of California Press, 302. ISBN 0520234227.
- ^ Ephraim Stern (May 1975). "Israel at the Close of the Period of the Monarchy: An Archaeological Survey". The Biblical Archaeologist Vol. 38, No. 2: 26-54.
- ^ a b Bernard Lewis (2001). Islam in History: Ideas, People, and Events in the Middle East. Open Court Publishing, 157. ISBN 0812695186.
- ^ Reuven Amitai-Preiss (1995). Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Īlkhānid War, 1260-1281. Cambridge University Press, 99. ISBN 0521462266.
- ^ a b c d e f Welcome to Qaqun. Palestine Remembered. Retrieved on 2001-12-12.
- ^ a b Conservation of the Built Heritage in Israel: Projects - Qaqun (Qaqun Fortress). Israeli Antiquities Authority. Retrieved on 2007-12-12.
