Jerusalem district · depopulated 1948 · 1 min read
Al-Qabu
القبو
Al-Qabu was a small hilltop village west of Jerusalem, its stone houses ringed by terraces of olives and grain. Captured in October 1948 during Operation Ha-Har, it was destroyed, and moshav Mevo Betar was later built on its lands.
See Al-Qabu on the Atlas31.7278°N · 35.1194°E
Al-Qabu crowned a steep mountain west of Jerusalem, not far from Ayn Karim, with a secondary road linking it to the Bayt Jibrin–Jerusalem highway. It was a small place — the 1945 British survey counted 260 residents, all Muslims — whose stone houses looked over terraced slopes of olives, figs, and grain.
The village changed hands several times in the fighting of 1948 before the Harel Brigade took it for good on 22–23 October, during Operation Ha-Har, the offensive that secured the southwestern approaches to Jerusalem. Its people fled or were expelled toward the West Bank, and the village was destroyed. Even after the 1949 armistice, villagers who tried to drift back to their homes across the new line were turned away.
Today the site is a spread of stone rubble, terraces, and wild almond and olive trees on the hilltop; moshav Mevo Betar was established on the village lands in 1950. Al-Qabu’s name survives mainly in the records of the Jerusalem district’s emptied villages — and in the ruins that still mark the ridge.
Sources
Cited works
3- palestineremembered.com — index(opens in a new tab)https://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/al-Qabu/index.html
- zochrot.org — en(opens in a new tab)https://www.zochrot.org/villages/village_details/49455/en
- palquest.org — al qabu(opens in a new tab)https://www.palquest.org/en/place/16867/al-qabu