Amka

For the ancient Egyptian official, see Amka (official).

Amka עַמְקָה‎
Amka
Coordinates:
Grid position	215400/764900 ITM 166/265 PAL
District	Northern
Council	Matte Asher
Region	Western Galilee
Founded	1949
Founded by	Yemenite Jewish immigrants
Population (2014)	629

Amka or Amqa (Hebrew: עַמְקָה‎ Arabic: عمقا‎‎) is a moshav in the Matte Asher Regional Council of Israel's North District, near Acre. The location of the moshav roughly corresponds the former Arab village, depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Yemenite Jews, who arrived from the southern Arab country of Yemen, founded the village's successor Amka in 1949. In 2014 its population was 629.

Etymology

Palmer thought the name Amka to come from the Arabic form of “deep”, while Ringgren suggested that the name preserves the name of Beth Ha-Emek, a city mentioned in Joshua 19:27 as part of the allotment of the Tribe of Asher.

History

Ancient history

During the Roman period, the village located at the same site was called Kefar Amqa. In the Byzantine period the location was probably identified with the village of "Amico".

During the Crusades

During the Crusader period, it was referred to as Amca. In 1179 Joscelin III acquired the land of the village, and in 1220 Jocelyn III´s daughter Beatrix de Courtenay and her husband Otto von Botenlauben, Count of Henneberg, sold their land, including ‘’Amca’’, to the Teutonic Knights.

In 1283, it was mentioned as part of the domain of the Crusaders during the hudna between the Crusaders based in Acre and the Mamluk sultan al-Mansur (Qalawun).

Ottoman period

Amqa
Arabic	عمقا
Also spelled	'Amqa
Subdistrict	Acre
Population	1,240 (1945)
Area	6,060 dunams 6.1 km²
Date of depopulation	10–11 July 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Amka

Incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, 'Amqa appeared in the 1596 tax registers as being in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Akka under the liwa' (district) of Safad, with a population of 215. All the inhabitant were Muslim. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, such as wheat, barley, olives, cotton and fruit, and on other types of produce, such as goats and beehives.

In the early 18th century the village was under control of Shaykh Najm. He had an agreement to sell the cotton from this and other villages under his control exclusively to the Dutch trader Paul Maashook. In return, Maashook would pay the "miri" tax normally payable by the village shaykhs. The Syrian Sufi teacher and traveller Mustafa al-Bakri al-Siddiqi (1688-1748/9), who travelled through the region in the first half of the eighteenth century, said that he prayed in the village after visiting the citadel of Atlit. In 1776 the village was used as a base by Ahmad Jazzar Pasha to crush a revolt led by Ali, one of the sons of Zahir al-Umar.

A map by Pierre Jacotin from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 showed the place, mis-named as El Mead,

In the late 19th century, the village was described as being built of stone, situated on a slight rise in a valley, surrounded by olive and fig trees, and arable land. There were an estimated 300 Druzes living there. Later, the residents were described as Muslims who maintained a village mosque. In 1887, the Ottoman authorities built a school in ´Amqa.

During the British Mandate

Further information: 1948 Palestinian exodus

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Amqa had a population of 724; 722 Muslims and 2 Christians, increasing in the 1931 census to 895, all Muslims, in a total of 212 houses.

In 1945 the population of Amqa was 1,240 with over 6,000 dunums (1,500 acres) of land according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,648 dunams were plantations and irrigable land; 3,348 used for cereals, while 36 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, all that remains of the Arab village structures are an elementary school for boys, founded under Ottoman rule in 1887 and one mosque.

The majority of the surviving Arab buildings of Amqa were completely destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the late 1950s on the orders of the Israeli government. The mosque and a schoolroom now used as a warehouse, are the only surviving buildings.

Within Israel

The village was captured by Israel's 7th Brigade on 16 July 1948 during Operation Dekel. It was largely destroyed, with the exception of its school and its mosque, and most of its inhabitants were expelled, with the exception of its former Druze inhabitants who still live nearby. Some of the inhabitants remained in Israel as present absentees. On 1 March 1949 a UN observer reported villagers from 'Amqa amongst a large group of people expelled by the IDF which arrived at Salim in the West Bank. He also noted other villagers from 'Amqa in a group expelled on 26 March. In February 1950, the village was declared a closed area. The Arab population remained under Martial Law until 1966.

A group of Yemenite Jewish immigrants were settled in Amka in 1949.

Archaeological sites

Three khirbats ("archaeological ruins") lay within Amka's vicinity and contain the foundations of buildings, well-chiseled building stones, presses, and a cistern. During archaeological searches of the area remnants of a Byzantine church were discovered but due to the destruction of the village no foundations could be established.

The Amka mosque was inspected by Petersen in 1991. The date of the mosque construction is not known, but it bears a general similarity to the nearby mosque of Al-Ghabisiyya, and is probably of a similar age, i.e. early 19th century.

See also

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

Bibliography

• Cohen, A. (1973), Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: Patters of Government and Administration. Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Cited in Petersen, (2001)
• (p.23)

External links and references

• Welcome To 'Amqa
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 3: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• 3amqa, Dr. Moslih Kanaaneh