Qannir

Qannir stood on slightly elevated terrain in the bilad al-rawha’, thirty-five kilometres from Haifa at about a hundred metres, the landscape sloping away towards the northern part of the coastal plain. A secondary road linked it to the coastal highway. In the late nineteenth century it was built of adobe brick on a low hill, and its 250 Muslim residents cultivated 24 faddans; a later account describes stone houses built side by side.

The village economy rested on agriculture — primarily grain and vegetables — and on cattle raising. In 1944/45, 5,760 dunums were allocated to cereals and 460 were irrigated or planted in orchards, out of 11,331 in all, of which 10,826 were Arab-owned. The 1931 census counted 483 people in 92 houses; the 1945 statistics counted 750. The village lands held a number of khirbas where the ruins of walls and cisterns were found, and the village itself appears to have been built over an earlier, as yet unidentified settlement.

Qannir was attacked repeatedly in early March 1948, in the first phase of the war. The Palestinian daily Filastin reported an attack on 5 March and added that it was the third attack on the village in a week; according to the report the attack was repulsed by the village contingent of the national guard, and no casualties were mentioned.

After the fall of Haifa in late April, some of the surrounding villages were attacked or evacuated. Benny Morris states that the villagers of Qannir fled on 25 April, in fear of an attack and under the influence of the offensive against Haifa. But Arab Liberation Army records indicate that Qannir was still in Arab hands in early May, when it was briefly occupied by the Haganah. The ALA commander Fawzi al-Qawuqji stated in one of his dispatches that at four in the morning on 8 May an armoured assault was launched against Qannir and neighbouring Kafr Qar’, that the attack was resisted and repelled, and that the enemy withdrew and both villages were recovered. Neither account establishes when Haganah forces actually entered the village, and Zochrot’s entry gives no occupation date at all.

The settlement of Regavim was established on village land in 1949; Morris writes that it was moved to Qannir after first being established at the nearby village of al-Butaymat in July 1948. Stone rubble is strewn about the site, which is covered with thorns, fig trees and cactus. Part of the adjacent land is used by Israelis as pasture and part is cultivated.

Sources

• Qannir — Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question (palquest)
• Qannir — Zochrot
• Qannir — Wikipedia