al-Wa'ra al-Sawda', Khirbat

The village was situated on a volcanic rock ridge overlooking Wadi al-Hamam and the Sea of Tiberias. It was connected by a secondary road to the village—which is classified as cultivated in the Geographical Dictionary of Palestine—that ran parallel to the lakeshore all the way to the city of Tiberias. This road was unpaved and linked the village to the Hattin road in the southwest. The village houses were irregularly clustered around the intersection of these two roads.

Most of the village inhabitants belonged to the Bedouin Arab tribe of Al-Mawasi, although some families came from the Al-Wuhaib Bedouin tribe. Their stone houses were surrounded by Bedouin tents, as they had not constructed permanent homes for themselves. The entire population was Muslim. On the northern outskirts of the village was a ruin containing two local shrines dedicated to the sheikhs Omar and Musa al-Kadhim. The villagers held religious celebrations at the shrine of the latter.

Agriculture formed the backbone of the village’s economy. Olive trees were planted in the northern areas of the village lands, while grains were cultivated in the floor of Wadi al-Hamam. In 1944/1945, a total of 2,017 dunams were allocated for grain cultivation. Nearby the village were several archaeological sites, including two ruins with the foundations of studied buildings, pools, cisterns, a cave, terraces, and a rock-carved basin.

Occupation and Ethnic Cleansing

No official reports were published regarding the occupation of this village. However, its location suggests one of two possibilities. The first is that the village was likely occupied on the morning of April 18, 1948, following the fall of Tiberias. After occupying the city, Haganah forces raided several neighboring villages to consolidate control over Tiberias and force the residents to leave the surrounding area. Khirbet Al-Wa'ra Al-Sawda may have been among these villages.

The second possibility is that the village was occupied during Operation Dekel (see the Acre district overview). When the forces that occupied Nazareth advanced eastward towards Tiberias, the village likely fell under occupation in mid-July, coinciding with the fall of Hattin, just before the second truce in the war.

There is an oral account of a massacre of the Al-Mawasi tribe in late October or early November 1948, after the second truce. According to villagers, Jewish soldiers gathered 15 men and took them to the village of Ilion, where they opened fire. Two of the men feigned death and survived when the soldiers temporarily withdrew. After a few minutes, the soldiers returned and resumed firing, this time aiming at their heads. Fourteen men were killed and buried in a nearby cave. The sole survivor fled to Syria with some of the Al-Mawasi tribe, while others joined tribes dispersed throughout the inner Galilee.

The Village Today

No houses or remains stand to indicate that a village once existed here except for some stone terraces. The site and surrounding lands are currently used as grazing areas for livestock, although parts of it are cultivated by Israelis.

Israeli Settlements on Village Lands

The settlement of Revid (established in 1932/50) lies approximately 3 kilometers west of the village site but is not on the village’s lands. The settlement of Arbel (established in 1949) is located about 1 kilometer southeast of the site, on the lands of the village of Hattin.