These photos are from a visit ten years ago to the ruins of al-Zeeb, a Palestinian village on the shores on the Mediterranean, north of Acre and very close to the border with Lebanon. For #NakbaDay, here’s a bit of al-Zeeb’s history 1/10 
In the #Ottoman period al-Zeeb pops up in a few archival records. Tax documents from the 16th century show a typical northern Palestinian village growing various grains, its fields ploughed by water buffalo, and a variety of other produce like fruit and honey 2/10
In 1693 the #Ottoman scholar ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi stopped in al-Zeeb on his way to Acre. After a dangerous journey, he received a warm welcome from the village notables. He wrote a poem, punning on the fact that ‘zeeb’ sounds like the word for ‘wolf’ (dh’ib) in Arabic: 3/10
We went from Tyre to Acre and what a welcome-
The people were in strife, ignorance & tyranny.
But then we met with [sheikh] Sa’ad al-Din’s people,
Who lifted our dread with kindness & care,
So that we didn’t fear a lion attack, even though we were in the village of the wolf 4/10
The people were in strife, ignorance & tyranny.
But then we met with [sheikh] Sa’ad al-Din’s people,
Who lifted our dread with kindness & care,
So that we didn’t fear a lion attack, even though we were in the village of the wolf 4/10
When the @PalExFund’s Survey of Western Palestine came to al-Zeeb in the 1870s, they described it as: “A stone and conglomerate village on the sea shore with olives, figs, mulberries and pomegranates; there is a small mosque in the village which contains about 400 Muslims” 5/10
Al-Zeeb also received attention from the Ottoman state as part of their building projects in Palestine. The Education Ministry yearbook shows that on 23 April 1902 a state primary school (ibtidai) was established to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Sultan Abdülhamid II 6/10
If you take a look at this brilliant project using historical maps by @visualizingpal we can see al-Zeeb as it was under the British Mandate, a small but thriving agricultural community on the coast: today.visualizingpalestine.org/al-zeeb/ 7/10
On 14 May 1948, al-Zeeb was attacked by Zionist forces. The inhabitants of the village fled, around 2,000 people in all. The village itself was almost entirely raised to the ground. The villagers were not permitted to return, and became- and remain -refugees 8/10
Today what was once al-Zeeb is a tourist site as part of the Achziv Beach National Park. The one surviving house, belonging to the mukhtar, has been made into a museum of sorts, and the mosque is part of a recreation area - you can see photos here: zochrot.org/en/village/491… 9/10
An interesting Palestinian reflection on the loss and continuing trauma of the Nakba can be found in Emile Habibi’s powerful story ‘سرايا بنت الغول’, translated into English as ‘Saraya, the Ogre’s Daughter’, in which al-Zeeb and its ruins play a central role 10/10
