Update on Iqrit and Bir'im

On September 22, 1999 Israel's High Court granted the Israeli government an 8 month extension in which to decide about the petition submitted by residents of Iqrit to return to their village in the Galilee. The petition was submitted to the government of Israel in 1997. A 1995 Israeli government committee recommended the partial resettlement of Iqrit and Bir'im but the decision has yet to be carried out. Residents of the two villages were ordered by the IDF in 1948 to temporarily evacuate their homes until fighting in the northern border area resided. The villagers were later prevented from returning and the villages were demolished. Residents of Bir'im rejected the 1995 government proposal as unsatisfactory. (Article 74, December 1998)

Iqrit:
Land Ownership (1944/45)
             Arab: 21,711 dunums
             Jewish: 0
             Public: 3,011
Population (1948)
568 Palestinians
Refugee Population (1998)
3,491

Bir'im:
Land Ownership (1944/45)
               Arab: 12,244
               Jewish:      0
               Public:       6
Population (1948)
824 Palestinians
Refugee Population (1998)
5,058

Source: Walid Khalidi (ed.), All That Remains, The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992. Salman Abu-Sitta, The Palestinian Nakba, 1948, The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, London: The Palestinian Return Centre, 1998.