Colony of Amka

Amqa (also known in Arabic as Amqa) is a settlement located in the northern region of occupied Palestine, near the city of Acre. The location of the settlement corresponds approximately to that of the depopulated Palestinian village of Amqa, and was established in 1949 by Yemeni Zionist immigrants on land belonging to the original village, whose inhabitants were forcibly displaced during the Nakba War of 1948.

The Israeli 7th Brigade captured the village on July 16, 1948, during Operation Dekel. The village was largely destroyed, with the exception of its school and mosque. Most of its inhabitants were expelled, except for the former Druze residents, who still live nearby. On March 1, 1949, a United Nations observer reported the presence of villagers from Amqa among a large group of people expelled by the Israeli occupation army, who had arrived in Salem in the West Bank. Additional groups from Amqa were reported among those expelled on March 26.

In February 1950, the settlement was declared a closed military zone, and the remaining Arab residents lived under martial law until 1966.

All that remains of the village structures is a boys’ elementary school, originally established under Ottoman rule in 1887, and a single mosque. The majority of the remaining Arab buildings in Amqa were demolished by Israeli occupation forces (IDF) in the late 1950s by order of the Israeli occupation government. Today, the mosque and one classroom, currently used as a storage facility, are the only remaining buildings.

As of 2022, the population of the Amqa settlement stood at approximately 833 settlers.

Sources:
Due to the scarcity of Arabic-language sources, Hebrew-language references were used: the official Hebrew website of the settlement and the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.
Historical information on the village of Amqa was obtained from Palestine Remembered.