Palmer thought the name Amka to come from the Arabic form of “deep”,[2]
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.[3]
History
Ancient period
Amka is identified with Kefar Amiqo (
Hebrew: כפר עמיקו), a place mentioned in the
Mishnah and
Tosefta.[4]Walid Khalidi writes that during the
Roman period, the village located at the site was called Kefar Amqa.[5]
In 1283, Amka 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).[8]
Ottoman Empire
Incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire in 1517, 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.[9] All the inhabitants were Muslim.[10] 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.[9][11]
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 slated for funding the annual
Hajj caravan), which was normally payable by the village
shaykhs (chiefs).[12] The Syrian
Sufi teacher and traveler Mustafa al-Bakri al-Siddiqi (1688–1748/9), who traveled through the region in the first half of the 18th century, said that he prayed in the village after visiting the citadel of
Atlit.[5] In 1776 the village was used as a base by
Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar to suppress a revolt led by Ali al-Zahir, one of the sons of Sheikh
Zahir al-Umar, who ruled the Galilee between 1730 and 1775.[13]
Excavations in Amka
A map by
Pierre Jacotin from
Napoleon's invasion of 1799 showed the place, misnamed as El Mead,[14] 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
Druze living there.[15] Later, the residents were described as
Muslims who maintained a village
mosque. In 1887, the Ottoman authorities built a school in ´Amqa.[5]
A population list from about 1887 showed that Amka had about 740 inhabitants, all Muslim.[16]
In
1945 the population of Amqa was 1,240 Muslims,[22] with over 6,000
dunums (1,500
acres) of land according to an official land and population survey.[18] Of this, 1,648 dunams were plantations and irrigable land; 3,348 used for cereals,[23] while 36 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[24]
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.[25] 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.[26] In February 1950, the village was declared a closed area.[27] The Arab population remained under
Martial Law until 1966.
A group of
Yemenite Jewish immigrants were settled in Amka in 1949.[citation needed] Depopulated during the
1948 Arab–Israeli war,[28][29] 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 remaining Arab buildings of Amqa were destroyed by the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the late 1950s on the orders of the Israeli government.[5][30][31] The mosque and a schoolroom now used as a warehouse, are the only remaining buildings.[5][32]
Archaeological sites
Three khirbas (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.[33][34][35] 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.[32]
^
abHütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 192. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 4
^39 households, according to Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 192
^Note that Rhode, 1979, p.
6Archived 2019-04-20 at the
Wayback Machine writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
^Cohen, 1973, p.12. Cited in Petersen, 2001, p.
93
^Morris, 2004, p.
xvii, village #85. Also gives cause of depopulation.
^
abGovernment of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p.
40Archived 2018-09-15 at the
Wayback Machine
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p.
80Archived 2018-09-15 at the
Wayback Machine
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p.
130Archived 2018-09-15 at the
Wayback Machine
^Charles S. Kamen (1987). "After the Catastrophe I: The Arabs in Israel, 1948-51". Middle Eastern Studies. 23 (4): 453–495.
doi:
10.1080/00263208708700721.; Sabri Jiryis (1973). "The Legal Structure for the Expropriation and Absorption of Arab Lands in Israel". Journal of Palestine Studies. 2 (4): 82–104.
doi:
10.1525/jps.1973.2.4.00p0099c.
Barag, Dan (1979). "A new source concerning the ultimate borders of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem". Israel Exploration Journal. 29 (3/4): 197–217.
JSTOR27925726.
Cohen, A. (1973), Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: Patterns of Government and Administration. Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Cited in Petersen, (2001)
Frankel, Rafael (1988). "Topographical notes on the territory of Acre in the Crusader period". Israel Exploration Journal. 38 (4): 249–272.
JSTOR27926125.