Al-Ja'una
Al-Ja'una or Ja'ouna (Arabic: الجاعونة), was a Palestinian village situated in Galilee near al-Houleh Plateau, overlooking the Jordan Valley. The village lay on a hillside 450–500 meters above sea level, 5 kilometers east of Safad near a major road connecting Safad with Tabariya. The Israeli town of Rosh Pinna (Hebrew:ראש פינה) sits on the former village site, which was expanded to include the depopulated Palestinian Al-Ja'una. History. Broken pillars and a capital has been found here. Ottoman era. Al-Ja'una was mentioned in the 1596 Ottoman census as being a village in the "nahiya  (subdistrict) of Jira", in the Safad Sanjak, with 27 households and 4 bachelors, an estimated population of 171. All the villagers were Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on various agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, olives, goats, beehives, and a powered mill; a total of 2,832 akçe. 1/12 of the revenue went to a Muslim charitable institution. The village appeared under the name of "Gahoun" on the map that Pierre Jacotin compiled during Napoleon's invasion of 1799. In 1838, it was noted as "el-Ja'uneh", a Muslim village, located in the "el-Khait" district . In 1875, Victor Guérin found that Al-Ja'una had 200 Muslim inhabitants. In 1881 the PEF's "Survey of Western Palestine" described it as a stone village of 140-200 residents who grew figs and olives. There were two springs in a wadi, south of the village. A mosque and an elementary school for boys was established in the village in Ottoman times. The settlement of Rosh Pinna is located to the southeast of the village site. It was first established in 1878 on land purchased from the villagers of al-Ja'una but has expanded over the years to include  part of the former village land of Al-Ja'una. Laurence Oliphant visited Rosh Pinna and Al-Ja'una in 1886, and wrote: A population list from about 1887 showed "Ja’auneh" to have about 930 inhabitants; 555 Muslims and 375 Druze. British Mandate era. In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Ja'uneh had a population of 626; all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 799, still all Muslims, in a total of 149 houses. Felix Salten visited Rosh Pinna in 1924 and noted also Al-Ja’una in his travel book "Neue Menschen auf alter Erde": “Right  next to Rosh Pin[n]a, the Arab village "Dzha’une". These early settlers still employ Arab workers, a practice that naturally had to cease within the new rebuilding movement. The Arabian children of "Dzha’une" all go to school that has been built for them by the settlement [of Rosh Pinna] and they are taught Hebrew there.” In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,150 Muslims, and the total land area was 839 dunums; 824 of which were owned by Arabs, 7 by Jews, and 8 public. Of this, 172 dunums were plantations and irrigable land, 248 used for cereals, while 43 dunams  were built-up (urban) land. 1948 Arab-Israeli war, depopulation, and aftermath. The village was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, the evacuation of the residents took place either in late April, or on 9 May, coinciding with the final attack on Safad. At midnight on 5–6 June 1949, the remaining villagers in Al-Ja'una (together with those of Al-Khisas and Qaytiyya) were surrounded by Israeli Defence Force units, who then forced the villagers into trucks "with brutality—with kicks, curses and maltreatment..." (according to Knesset member and "Al HaMishmar" editor Eliezer  Peri) and left them on a hill near 'Akbara. When questioned about the expulsions, David Ben-Gurion responded that there was "sufficient" military justification. 'Akbara served as a "dumping spot" for the "remainders" from various depopulated Palestinian villages, and its conditions were to remain bad for years. Walid Khalidi, writing in 1992 about the remains of Al-Ja'una, stated: "The settlement of Rosh Pinna occupies the village site. Many of the houses remain; some are used by the residents of the settlement; other stone houses have been abandoned and destroyed."