Antiquity: archaeological sites The
Canaanites erected a statue for the god
Melqart of
Tyre in the village. The village area contains mosaic floors, remains of a wine press, rock-hewn tombs, cisterns, and granite implements. There are many
archaeological sites in Iqrit's vicinity. Iqrit is identified with
Yoqeret or
Yokereth () a
Jewish village mentioned in the
Talmud, homeplace of
Jose of Yokereth (Babylonian Talmud,
Ta'anit, 23b).
Crusader period When the
Crusaders occupied Iqrit, they called it Acref. Açref is a name still commonly used for the village among surrounding
Bedouin tribes.
Ottoman period Incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of
Palestine, Iqrit appeared in the 1596
tax registers as being in the
nahiya (subdistrict) of
Akka under the Liwa of
Safad, with a population of 374 and an economy dependent largely on
goats,
beehives and
agriculture. There was a press used for
olives or
grapes. In 1875,
Victor Guérin passed by the village and was told that it was "very considerable" and inhabited by Maronites and Greek Orthodox Christians. In 1881, the
Palestine Exploration Fund's (PEF)
Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) called it
Akrith, and described it as a village of stone buildings situated on a
tell, with arable land including figs and olives, a modern chapel serving a Christian population of 100, and water supplied by three springs and a dozen rock-cut
cisterns.
British Mandate Like a number of other villages in the area, Iqrit was linked to the coastal highway from
Acre to
Ras an-Naqura via a secondary road leading to
Tarbikha. There were 339 people living in 50 houses in the
census of 1931, which rose to 490 by the
1945 statistics, comprising 460 Christians and 30 Muslims. while 68 dunams were built-up (urban) land. At the time of their eviction in November 1948, there were 491 citizens in Iqrit, including 432
Melkites (Greek Catholics), inhabiting the entire area of the village. Some of the 59
Muslims of the village rented their homes in Iqrit while others had built houses in esh-Shafaya. Only part of the village land was cultivated and the rest was covered with
oak,
laurel and
carob trees. By 1948, the village owned about 600
dunams (600,000 m²) of private property with groves of
fig trees that served all inhabitants of Iqrit and the surroundings. The groves covered the hill of al-Bayad, and the remaining cultivated land was used for crops of
lentils, as well as
tobacco and other fruit trees. The village included a private elementary school administered by the
Greek Catholic Archdiocese and a large Melkite (Greek Catholic) church, the latter of which remains standing. There were two natural water springs, and many wells and a large pool for collected rainwater. There were many threshing floors, mainly located between the built-up village lands and the cemetery.
1948 war soldiers in Iqrit, 3 November 1948 Iqrit was captured on 31 October 1948 by the
Haganah's
Oded Brigade during
Operation Hiram, an Israeli offensive which advanced on the coastal road towards
Lebanon. Iqrit and Tarbikha surrendered and the villagers stayed in their homes. Iqrit and a number of other villages in the region were soon affected by a policy known as "an Arabless border strip". While some of the former inhabitants of Iqrit became
refugees in
Lebanon, most are now
internally displaced Palestinians who are also citizens of
Israel.
Israel; struggle for return 1951 Supreme Court ruling In 1951,
Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari brought against Israel the first legal action concerning villagers returning to their homes. This was on behalf of 5 men who were Iqrit villagers and Israeli citizens. On 31 July 1951, the Israeli courts recognised the rights of the villagers to their land and their right to return to it. The court said the land was not abandoned and therefore could not be placed under the
Custodian of Absentee Property. In July 1951, the villagers of Iqrit pleaded their case before Israel's
Supreme Court, and the court ruled in favour of the right to return to their village, "as long as no emergency decree" against it has been issued. After this judgement, the military government immediately issued such a decree against the Ikrit evacuees.
IDF razes Iqrit Two months after the Israeli High Court had rules in favour of the Ikrit residents, on
Christmas Day 1951,
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed the village, including its residences and churches.
1952 verdict and expropriation In its third verdict, in February 1952, the court blamed the villagers for depending on promises from the military ruler of
Galilee, instead of benefiting from the legal remedy which was given to them by the court in its first relevant verdict.
Return attempts: 1970s–2010 In the 1970s, villagers from Iqrit conducted a series of sit-ins in the village's former church over a period of six years, and the case of Iqrit (and of Kafr Bir'im) was frequently covered by the Israeli media. Several prominent Israeli cultural and artistic figures supported the movement to repatriate the Iqrit villagers and public empathy for their plight was widespread. While the Israeli authorities recognized the villagers' right to return in principle, officials resisted implementing this right. In 1972, Israeli Prime Minister
Golda Meir stated: It is not only consideration of security [that prevents] an official decision regarding Bi'rim and Iqrit, but the desire to avoid [setting] a precedent. We cannot allow ourselves to become more and more entangled and to reach a point from which we are unable to extricate ourselves.
Meron Benvenisti noted in 2000 how it has been argued that the villagers of Iqrit and Bi'rim are not the only
present absentees in Israel, and therefore recognizing their
right of return is perceived as setting a "dangerous precedent" that would be followed by similar demands from other displaced persons. In 2003, some of Iqrit's villagers repetitioned the Supreme Court so as to facilitate their return to Iqrit, but the petition was rejected by the court.
Since 2010 In August 2012, a large demonstration was held in the city of Haifa demanding Israel to grant the descendants of villagers from Iqrit and Kafr Bir'im the right of return to the respective villages. Since the last Roots Camp In 2012, a group of the village's youth decided to stay in the village and conduct their lives as regular villagers; this came as an act of opposition to the Israeli government's continued dismissal of the case. In 2013,
Gideon Levy and
Alex Levac noted that "third-generation refugees − 15 young people − have established an outpost in the village church; they have been living here, under the radar, for more than a year." Iqrit is among the demolished Palestinian villages for which commemorative Marches of Return have taken place, such as those organized by the
Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced. Ahead of
Pope Francis visit to the region in 2014 the Iqrit villagers sent him a letter asking him to pressure Israel to allow them to return. At the same time, inspectors from the
Israel Land Administration uprooted newly planted trees and confiscated equipment used by villagers staying in Iqrit. In April 2015 the elders of Iqrit congregated with the younger generations in the old Church of St. Mary for Easter Monday Mass. Aymen Odeh, a Knesset member and a longtime supporter of the villagers and said it was time to take the case outside the village. “We need demonstrations in public squares and in front of the Knesset”, he said. ==Within the Arab–Israeli conflict==