Yaqut al-Hamawi, writing in the 1220s, referred to the place as a castle near
Tiberias. According to him, it fell in ruins after the reign of
Saladin. The
Ayyubid commander of
Ajlun,
Izz al-Din Usama, was given Kawkab al-Hawa as an
iqta ("fief") by Saladin in the late 1180s and it remained in his hands until 1212, when it was seized by sultan
al-Mu'azzam. An inscription in the
Ustinow collection, dated, tentatively, to the 13th century,
Ayyubid period, was found incised on a basalt rock near the spring at Kawkab al-Hawa. The inscription state: "He ordered to make this blessed fountain the illustrious amir, Shuja ad-Din, may his glory be perpetuated".
Ottoman era In 1517 the village was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine. During the
16th and
17th centuries, Kawkab al-Hawa belonged to
Turabay Emirate (1517-1683), which encompassed also the
Jezreel Valley,
Haifa,
Jenin,
Beit She'an Valley, northern
Jabal Nablus,
Bilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe, and the northern part of the
Sharon plain. In 1596, Kawkab al-Hawa was administrated by
nahiya ("subdistrict") of
Shafa under the ''
liwa''' ("district") of
Lajjun. It had a population of 9
Muslim households, an estimated 50 persons. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, beans and melons, as well as on vineyards; a total of 4,500
akçe.
Pierre Jacotin named the village
Kaoukab on his map from 1799. The scholar
Edward Robinson described the place in 1838 as a small village ("Kaukab el-Hawa"), situated "on the brow of the Jordan Valley", and he identified the place as the former Belvoir fortress.
Victor Guérin visited in 1875, and found some families using the vaulted spaces still standing inside the fortress. Since the village was built within the outlines of the fortress of Belvoir, it was slow to expand. The villagers, who numbered about 110 in 1859, resided within the fortress walls and cultivated about 13
faddans outside them.
British Mandate era In the
1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the
Mandatory Palestine authorities,
Kukab had a population of 167, all Muslims, increasing in the
1931 census to 220, still all Muslims, in 46 houses. In time the village expanded to the north and the west in a circle around the fortress. The
Muslim population of the village used their land, which lay outside the village walls, for agriculture. In the
1945 statistics Kawkab al-Hawa had a population of 300 Muslims
1948 War and aftermath According to
Benny Morris,
Kibbutzniks demanded – and often themselves carried out – the destruction of neighbouring villages as a means of blocking the return of the Arab villagers. For this reason a veteran local leader, Nahum Hurwitz of
Kfar Gil'adi appealed in a letter in September 1948 for permission to destroy Kawkab al-Hawa,
Jabbul,
al-Bira and
al-Hamidiyya in the area for fear that they may be used by Arabs for military operations and to enable them to "take the village's lands, because the Arabs won't be able to return there".
Walid Khalidi described the remaining structures of the village in 1992: "The village has been eliminated, but the site of the Belvoir Castle has been excavated and turned into a tourist attraction. Fig and olive trees grow on the village site. The slopes overlooking the Baysan Valley and Wadi al-Bira are used by Israelis as grazing areas; they also cultivate the other surrounding lands." ==See also==