'Arab al-Fuqara'

Arab al-Fuqara was a village situated on a flat sandy stretch of the coastal plain, near a secondary road that connected it to the main coastal highway to the east. It lay just south of Wadi al-Mufajjar and northwest of the Zionist settlement of Hadera, which was established in 1890.

Due to the prevalence of swamps and the widespread presence of malaria in this coastal region, population growth in the area was limited until the mid-1920s. The gradual expansion of the Hadera settlement progressively reduced the land available to the inhabitants of Arab al-Fuqara, ultimately leaving only a narrow strip of land between Hadera and Wadi al-Mufajjar.

The residents of Arab al-Fuqara were descendants of branches of the al-Balawneh Bedouin tribe, whose original territory was located near Beersheba.

The Village Today

No physical remains of the village are visible today. A few eucalyptus trees grow on the former village site.

Zionist Settlements on Village Lands

Parts of the northwestern neighborhoods of the Hadera settlement (grid reference: 142204) now occupy the lands of the former village. Among these is a small suburb known as Neve Hayim.