History
Thikrin / Zikrin
a town in Palestine
“Thikrin” is a town in Palestine, occupied, cleansed, and depopulated by the Zionists in 1948. It’s residents, about 1,369 simple villagers, were expelled forcefully. Their land, homes, and possessions taken. Many were killed and wounded.
Thikrin currently is ruins and farmland used as grazing and agricultural grounds by the Zionist settlers. The town is located approximately 25 km from the city of Hebron and was famous for its large number of natural wells, which amounted to more than fifty in 1945. Some of these wells go back to the Roman era. The Zionists withdraw this water to supply nearby settlements. During the Nakba, the town was a thriving town in agriculture and trade. There was also a school that served the town and neighboring villages.
The residents of the village frequently went to Hebron and Beit Jibrin to buy and sell goods in the markets, where they would travel towards the town of Al-Falujah in Gaza to sell their goods and buy some supplies from there. There was a mosque in the village located on one of the hills of the village, which was at the time the newest mosque in all of western Hebron. The mosque was built with modern white stone, and this mosque was the first to be bombed when the Zionist gangs entered the land of Hebron in October 1948. The expelled villagers of Thikrin were dispersed around the globe, most are in Jordan. They created an social organization in Amman, Jordan, in the name of their town: “Zahr al-Basateen”, where they meet to collaborate and discuss the affairs of the families of Thikrin.
History
The village is situated in the easternmost extension of the southern coastal plain, near the western foothills of the Hebron Mountains. It was linked to Bayt Jibrin, to the southeast, by a secondary road that passed through Kudna. Another secondary road ran from Thikrin through the village of Ajjur to a highway that ran northeast from Bayt Jibrin and intersected the Jerusalem-Jaffa highway. Thikrin was called Kefar Dikrina during the Roman period. In 1596, Thikrin was a part of the municipality of Gaza, with a population of 220. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, sesame, and fruits, as well as on vineyards. In the late nineteenth century, Thikrin was a village built of stone and surrounded by gardens. Its water supply came from ‘numerous’ natural wells in the valley to the north.
The residents of the modem village were Muslims. Their houses were built of stone, mud, and wood and were distributed along two roads, one leading to Bayt Jibrin and another to Dayr al-Dubban. The village had an elementary school and several small shops. Shallow wells (3 to 15 m deep) collected rainwater and runoff from the valleys, which the villagers utilized for drinking, irrigation, and construction. A well located on Wadi Bisiyya was the main source of drinking water. The villagers engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry. They grew grain, vegetables, and olives. In 1944/45 they allocated a total of 15,058 dunums of their land to cereals. Trees, shrubs, and wild grass grew on the south and southeast sides and served as pastures.
Occupation and depopulation
The Zionist army’s Giv’ati Brigade occupied Thikrin on 22-23 October 1948, along with a few other villages in the Hebron area. The push towards Hebron was coordinated with Operation Yoav. Residents were expelled, and many were killed and injured.
The Village Today
Mostly ruins. The houses have been reduced to leveled debris hidden beneath an overgrowth of wild vegetation. One can see the ruins of homes and stones that served as fences for home gardens. Cactuses, carob, fig, and olive trees grow on the site. The land is currently used by the Zionist settlers as pasture.