Qaddita

Qaddita
Qaddita
Arabic	قدّيتا
Name meaning	from personal name
Also spelled	Kaditta
Subdistrict	Safad
Coordinates
Palestine grid	194/267
Population	240 (1945)
Area	2,441 dunams 20.0 km²
Date of depopulation	May 11, 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Influence of nearby town's fall
Current localities	Kadita

Qaddita (Arabic: قدّيتا‎‎, transliteration: Qaddîtâ) was a Palestinian Arab village of 240, located 4.5 kilometers (2.8 mi) northwest of Safad. It was captured and depopulated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, with some of its inhabitants expelled or fleeing to nearby Akbara where they live as internally displaced Palestinians and others to refugee camps in Lebanon or Syria.

History

It is possible that the name "Qaddita" is an Arabic distortion of the Aramaic word kaddish.

Ottoman era

Qaddita was under the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and by 1596 it was administrated by the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira, part of Sanjak Safad. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, vineyards, beehives, and goats. Qaddita had a population of 149 inhabitants in 1596.

The village appeared under the name of Kadis on the map that Pierre Jacotin compiled during Napoleon's invasion of 1799.

The village was reported to be totally destroyed in the devastating Galilee earthquake of 1837.

In the late 19th century, it was a small densely populated village consisting of ten houses built of stone and mud. The slope on which it was located was covered by gardens and fig trees. The population was roughly 200.

British Mandate era

Under the rule of the British Mandate in Palestine, Qaddita expanded north and south, its houses were clustered together, and built of stone. In the 1922 census of Palestine, Qaddita had a population of 110; all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 170, still all Muslims, in a total of 32 houses.

Its economy was based on animal husbandry and crop cultivation, mainly grains, figs, pomegranates, and grapes as well as olives which by 1943 covered 77 dunams. In 1945 the population was 240, and the total land area was 2,441 dunums; Of this, 150 dunums was plantations and irrigable land, 1,452 cereals, while 31 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

1948, and after

Like many other Arab villages in the eastern Galilee, Qaddita was evacuated a day after Safad fell to the Israelis during Operation Yiftach on May 10. Some villagers were evicted to the village of Akbara, south of Safad, where they, according to Walid Khalidi, lived under harrowing circumstances. No Jewish towns were built on village lands. Khalidi describes the remains of the village being "tombs from the cemetery and stone rubble from the destroyed homes."

See also

• Hamaam
• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

External links

• Welcome to Qaddita
• Qaddita, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
• Qaddita, Dr. Khalil Rizk
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 4: IAA, Wikimedia commons