Shomera Colony

Shomera is a settlement located in the Western Galilee, near the northern border of occupied Palestine with Lebanon. It was established in 1949 on the site of the former settlement of Tarbikha, which itself was built on the lands of the depopulated Palestinian villages of Iqrit and Tarbikha, west of the village of an-Nabi Rubin in the Acre district. These areas were abandoned during Operation Hiram, which took place amid the ethnic cleansing campaign during the 1948 war.

The original settlers were Jewish immigrants from Romania and Hungary, who left the settlement later that same year. In 1950, new immigrants from Morocco arrived. In October 1955, a large fire broke out in the moshav, destroying many farms and residential buildings.

During the “Iron Swords War” in October 2023, following threats and rocket fire targeting the settlement, Moshav Shomera was evacuated of its residents.
As of 2022, the settlement had a population of approximately 373 settlers.

The village of Tarbikha was occupied on 1 November 1948 by soldiers of the Seventh Brigade of the Haganah (Sheva Brigade) during Operation Hiram.

Sources:
Due to the lack of available Arabic sources, Hebrew sources were used:

• The settlement’s Hebrew-language website
• Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics
• Palestine Remembered entries for the villages of Iqrit and Tarbikha