Samakh , Tiberias Samakh ( ) was a Palestinian Arab village located at the southern end of the Lake Tiberias in Palestine . It had a population of 3 , 320 Arab Muslims and Arab Christian s in 1945 . The town ' s inhabitants fled after Haganah forces captured the town on March 3 , 1948 , with the remainder leaving in the wake of an assault by the Golani Brigade against the Syrian army on April 18 , 1948 . Most of the former residents became internally displaced refugees in the Arab city of Nazareth . It was the site of battle in 1918 during World War I . Between 1905 and 1948 , the town was an important stop on the Jezreel Valley railway and Hejaz railway , being the last effective stop in the British Mandate of Palestine ( the station at al - Hamma was geographically isolated ) . Today , the Tzemah Industrial Zone and a part of kibbutz Ma ' agan are situated on the location of the former village . Location . The village was situated on flat land in the Jordan Valley , on the southernmost shore of Lake Tiberias , only a short distance east of the point where River Jordan exits from the lake . Samakh was the largest village in the Tiberias district , both in terms of area and population , and was a major transportation link . The village was served by a station on the railroad line that ran on the Jezreel Valley railway , an extension of the Hejaz Railway . It lay on a highway that ran along the lake shore and led to the city of Tiberias in the northwest . Sailing routes on Lake Tiberias also linked Samakh with Tiberias ' s harbour . History . The village was established in the early nineteenth century . Most houses were built of adobe , but some were built of the black ( basalt ) stone that was abundant in the Golan area near Samakh . Johann Ludwig Burckhardt , a Swiss traveler to Palestine who saw the village ( which he called " Szammagh " ) , in 1812 , described it as a collection of thirty or forty mud houses that stood alongside more costly houses built of black stone . He said about 100 faddans ( 1 fadda = 100 – 250 dunam s ) were cultivated in the immediate vicinity . In the late nineteenth century , Samakh was described as a village of 200 inhabitants who cultivated the surrounding plain . The village and its railway station were the site of a battle between British / Australian and German / Turkish forces in World War I . The battle ended in an Allied victory and opened up the way to Damascus for General Allenby ' s troops . It was described by Field Marshal Wavell as the most fierce and cruel battle in the Palestinian theater . In 1923 a local council was created , which still administered Samakh by 1945 . The council ' s expenditure grew steadily , from P£310 in 1929 to P£1 , 100 in 1944 . By 1944 / 45 the population of Samakh had increased to 3 , 320 Muslims , 130 Christians and 10 of other faiths . The majority of the population belonged to the settled Bedouin tribes of the ' Arab al - Suqur and ' Arab al - Bashatiwa . The village had two schools , one for boys and another for girls . Their chief crops were bananas and grain ; in 1944 / 45 a total of 8 , 523 dunums were planted in cereals . The village was captured by the Haganah in the 1947 – 1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine , along with the British border guard base nearby , and became a military outpost that changed hands twice in the Battles of the Kinarot Valley , between the Haganah and the Syrian Army . On May 21 , after the Syrian retreat , the Haganah set up a position in Samakh . Today . According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi , the structure remaining of Samakh are the ruins of the railway station and a water reservoir . The members of Degania Alef also built a public park , a gas station , and factories known today as the Tzemah Factories on the village site . The Kinneret College is also located there . The kibbutzim Masada and Sha ' ar HaGolan were established southeast of the village site in 1937 , and have since expanded onto lands within Samakh ' s former jurisdiction . Both Ma ' agan and the nearby kibbutz Tel Katzir were built on Samakh ' s land in 1949 . The kibbutzim Deganya Alef and Deganya Bet are also close to Samakh ' s location , but not on land that belonged to the village . The Tzemah road junction , between Highway 90 , 92 and 98 , is located next to the site of Samakh , and has in its vicinity a small water park and a Burger Ranch restaurant .