Village memory · Palestine
Dayr al-Qassi
دير القاسي
Dayr al-Qassi stood on a rocky hill at the centre of western Upper Galilee, twenty-six kilometres from Acre and five from the Lebanese border, with two mosques, two shrines and a Shadhiliyya zawiya. It fell on 30 October 1948 during Operation Hiram, and was bombed at the same time by Israeli aircraft — by mistake, the Israelis said — killing seven residents. Its people were not expelled at once: some 700 were still living there, in al-Bassa and in Tarshiha that December. The cabinet decided in January 1949 to put Jewish immigrants into every abandoned Galilee village, and by 27 May 1949 that had been achieved at Dayr al-Qassi.
- 1,250 residents before 1948