Ghuwayr Abu Shusha

The village was situated atop a small, low hill overlooking the Sea of Tiberias. It was located a short distance from the lakeshore and connected to the neighboring villages by a secondary road. When the American biblical scholar Edward Robinson passed through in 1838, he observed only the remains of a few stone houses and a shrine. Nevertheless, the Bedouins of the Ghawarna tribe cultivated most of the fertile lands below the village, and the Samakiyeh Bedouins used some of the village’s buildings as storage places.

The inhabitants, who were Muslim, obtained their drinking water from several springs. Agriculture was the main source of livelihood. Orange groves covering 200 dunams of land to the west, north, and south of the village were owned by Jews, while the villagers themselves cultivated vegetables and grains in the eastern portion of the village lands.

In 1944–1945, a total of 21 dunams were allocated to citrus and bananas, 1,848 dunams to cereals, and 1,377 dunams were irrigated or used for orchards.

Nearby, the ruin of Abu Shusha included water-powered mills located close to Wadi al-Raydiyah.

Occupation and Ethnic Cleansing

The newspaper Falastin reported that forty members of Jewish militia raided Ghuwayr Abu Shusha at 3:00 AM on 3 January 1948. The attack, which was resisted by the villagers, resulted in the death of the village headman’s son and an unnamed woman, as well as three attackers.

Israeli historian Benny Morris alleges that “panic” caused the villagers to flee the village three months after the fall of Tiberias and its surrounding area. Morris adds that the evacuation of Ghuwayr Abu Shusha weakened the morale of Safad’s inhabitants and hastened its fall. He suggests the depopulation occurred in two waves, on 21 and 28 April 1948, though he does not mention any direct military assault on the village.

Some villagers reportedly fled to the Galilean village of Al-Rama. When Israeli forces captured Al-Rama at the end of October, they ordered the inhabitants to move again, this time across the Lebanese border.

Villagers’ Testimonies

Villagers interviewed a generation later recalled a military attack on their village. They said they were not particularly concerned by the fall of Tiberias but were prepared to defend their village. When the Arab Liberation Army failed to supply them with weapons, they evacuated women, elders, and children to Al-Rama, leaving 48 men armed with 35–40 rifles to defend the village.

At dawn on 24 April, while the armed men were sleeping on the western side of the village, Palmach forces launched a surprise attack and occupied Ghuwayr Abu Shusha. The villagers decided not to resist as there was no one left in the village to protect.

The displaced villagers remained in Al-Rama until it too fell, after which many returned occasionally to retrieve belongings. Some ultimately settled in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, where interviews with them were conducted in 1973.

According to Morris, the state confiscated the village lands and leased them in the summer or early autumn of 1949 to the neighboring Jewish settlements of Magdiel (grid 197249), located approximately two kilometers east of the village site. The lease was reportedly for one year only, and Morris does not clarify whether longer leases or land ownership titles were granted later.

The Village Today

The site is predominantly covered with wild plants and thorns, including Christ’s Thorn and cactus. Among the stone rubble and some olive trees stand the shrine of Sheikh Muhammad and the remains of a mill. The lower lands are planted with citrus groves and bananas, while the elevated areas are used by Israelis as grazing land for livestock.

Zionist Settlements on Village Lands

The Zionist settlement of Ginosar (grid 199250) was established in 1937 to the east of the village on lands traditionally belonging to it. The settlement of Lachish (196252), founded in 1982 on village lands, lies approximately one kilometer northwest of the village site.