Kawkaba

The village was built on undulating land with reddish-brown soil, in the southern coastal plain, and was located on a highway built by the British during World War II along the coastal highway leading to it and passing through Gaza and Julis. It is located 25 kilometers from Gaza and at an average elevation of 100 meters above sea level. The village shared an elementary school with the villages of Beit Tima and Hulayqat, and there were two sources of water in its eastern lands: one a spring and the other a well 70 meters deep. The village’s inhabitants (who numbered 680 people in 1945) were Muslims who practiced seasonal agriculture. The village included an archaeological site containing a basin, cisterns, building foundations, columns, and broken column capitals.

Displacement
The villagers fled west towards Gaza on May 13, 1948, following the destruction of the neighbouring village of Barir during Operation Barak, but it seems that some of its residents remained, as one source states that they left in October 1948 during Operation Yoav. Another source states that Israel first occupied the village on June 14, 1948, violating the terms of the first truce of the war, as the villagers were expelled from it at that time. It seems that the village remained in Arab hands until the end of the second truce on October 18-19. The village changed hands between the warring forces at least three times during the war, and it is likely that its residents were displaced from it in stages.

Colonisation
In 1950, the colony of Kochav Michael was established on the village lands to the southeast of its location.

The village today
Sycamore and Christ’s thorn trees cover the site, and the old road is still clearly visible, in addition to the crumbling walls and rubble in a part of the site covered by forests, while the neighboring lands are exploited by Israeli farmers.

Reference: Walid Khalidi, Lest We Forget, pp. 572, 573.