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Dafna

Coordinates: 33°13′48″N 35°38′19″E / 33.23000°N 35.63861°E / 33.23000; 35.63861
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For the given name, see Dafna (given name).
Dafna
דפנה‎
Dafna in 1939
Dafna in 1939
Dafna is located in Northeast Israel
Dafna
Dafna
Coordinates: 33°13′48″N 35°38′19″E / 33.23000°N 35.63861°E / 33.23000; 35.63861
CountryIsrael
DistrictNorthern
CouncilUpper Galilee
AffiliationKibbutz Movement
Founded3 May 1939
Founded byPolish and Lithuanian Habonim Dror members
Population
 (2022)
1,073[1]
Websitewww.dafna.org.il
River Dan within kibbutz Dafna

Dafna (Hebrew: דַּפְנָה) is a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel. Located seven kilometres east of Kiryat Shmona and surrounded by three streams of the Dan River, it falls under the jurisdiction of Upper Galilee Regional Council. The kibbutz was founded on 3 May 1939 as a Tower and Stockade settlement, the first such settlement in the northern Hula Valley. Dafna, Beit Hillel, She'ar Yashuv and Dan were known as the "Ussishkin Fortresses [he]", named after Menahem Ussishkin. In 2022 it had a population of 1,073.[1]

History

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Dafna 1940s map 1:20,000

Early Roman pottery fragments have been found in an excavation in Dafna.[2] A place called Daphne was mentioned in this vicinity by Josephus.[3]

Edward Robinson, who visited in 1852, identified Daphne with a "low mound of rubbish with cut stones, evidently the remains of a former town" called Difneh that he encountered while riding south from Tel el-Qadi to Mansura.[3] He noted that the land for some distance south was called Ard Difneh.[3]

The Survey of Western Palestine identified Daphne with Khirbet Dufnah, meaning "the ruin of Daphne (oleander)", which they marked on their map in the place where Al-Shawka al-Tahta was to stand later, about 1 km NNW of present-day Dafna.[4][5][6]

An Arab settlement was founded sometime between 1858 and 1878.[7] Difnah was listed as a village by the Mandate government in 1924.[8] At the time of the 1931 census, Dafna had 66 occupied houses and a population of 318 Muslims and one Christian.[9] At the beginning of 1939, the village was pillaged by bedouin, causing most of the population to leave.[10] The land was soon purchased by the Jewish National Fund.[10] The JNF was represented in the negotiations by the same man, Kamel Hussein, who had earlier led the raid on Tel-Hai in which Josef Trumpeldor was killed.[10]

The original Jewish settlers were immigrants mostly from Poland and Lithuania.[11]

By the 1944/45 statistics, Dafna had a population of 380 Jews[12] with a total land area of 2,663 dunams, of which Jews owned 2,189 dunams.[13] Of this, a total of 2,385 dunams of land were irrigated or used for plantations, 5 dunums were used for cereals;[14] while 50 dunams were classified as built-up (or Urban) area.[15]

In 1947, it had a population of 600.[11] During early 1947 Palmach Officer Moshe Kelman was ordered by the Haganah High Command to supervise the execution and burial of a Jew accused of collaborating with the British. The execution took place at Kibbutz Dafna.[16][17]

  • Dafna under construction in 1939
    Dafna under construction in 1939
  • Dafna under construction in 1939
    Dafna under construction in 1939
  • Visit by Menachem Ussishkin on 1 May 1939
    Visit by Menachem Ussishkin on 1 May 1939
  • Dafna barracks & tower in 1939
    Dafna barracks & tower in 1939
  • Dafna: Remains of Emir's palace in 1940
    Dafna: Remains of Emir's palace in 1940
  • Dafna in 1942
    Dafna in 1942
  • View of southern entrance to the farm, Dafna in 1947
    View of southern entrance to the farm, Dafna in 1947
  • Dafna in 1948
    Dafna in 1948

After the 1948 Palestine war, Dafna took over part of the land belonging to the newly depopulated Palestinian village of Al-Sanbariyya.[18]

According to a 1949 book by the Jewish National Fund, Dafna along with other border settlements of Dan and Kfar Szold held off the Syrian and Lebanese forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. However, the settlement was often bombarded and was said to have suffered heavy damage.[11]

The fictional kibbutz Gan Dafna, its name presumably a nod to the real-life kibbutz Dafna, figures prominently in Leon Uris's book Exodus, as the hometown of the protagonist Ari Ben Caanan.

Dafna in 1946, 1:250,000

1997 helicopter disaster

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Main article: 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster

On 4 February 1997, at approximately 19:00, two "Yasur" Sikorsky CH 53 helicopters carrying 73 soldiers and loaded with ammunition collided in mid-air over She'ar Yashuv. One of the helicopters smashed into an open field near the cemetery of Dafna.[19] It is believed that this accident increased the pressure on the IDF to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, finally done in May 2000.[20]

2023 Israel–Hamas war

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During the 2023 war between Hamas and Israel, northern Israeli border communities, including Dafna, faced targeted attacks by Hezbollah and Palestinian factions based in Lebanon, and were evacuated.[21] On July 21, 2024, a Hezbollah rocket attack damaged a school, but there were no casualties.[22]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Regional Statistics". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
  2. ^ Mokary, Abdalla (2009-11-17). "Dafna Final Report". Hadashot Arkheologiyot (121).
  3. ^ a b c E. Robinson; E. Smith; et al. (1856). Later Biblical Researches in Palestine and in the Adjacent Regions — A Journal of Travel in the Year 1852. Boston: Crocker and Brewster. pp. 393–394.
  4. ^ Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. p. 26.
  5. ^ C. R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine. Vol. I. London: The Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. p. 118. Later Israeli maps marked Khirbet Dafna at a different place 1km SE of Dafna (Sheet "Dan", 1:20,000, at 2109/2921, Survey of Israel 1956).
  6. ^ Guérin, 1880, pp. 382−384
  7. ^ Y. Karmon (1953). "The Settlement of the Northern Huleh Valley since 1838". Israel Exploration Journal. 3 (1): 4–25.
  8. ^ Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine. Vol. 116. 1 June 1924. p. 687.
  9. ^ E. Mills, ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine. p. 105.
  10. ^ a b c Arieh L. Avnieri (1984). The Claim of Dispossession; Jewish Land-Settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books. pp. 195–196.
  11. ^ a b c Jewish National Fund (1949). Jewish Villages in Israel. Jerusalem: Hamadpis Liphshitz Press. p. 29.
  12. ^ Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 9
  13. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April 1945, quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 69.
  14. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 118
  15. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 168
  16. ^ Kurzman, Don (1970) Genesis 1948. The First Arab-Israeli War. New American Library (NAL), New York. Library of Congress number 77-96925. pp.479,480
  17. ^ Nachman Ben-Yehuda. "Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice." SUNY Press, 1992, pp 215-216. SUNY Series in Israeli Studies
  18. ^ Khalidi, W. (1992). All That Remains:The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. p. 494. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
  19. ^ Al menos 73 soldados israelíes mueren al colisionar dos helicópteros militares en el aire El Mundo, 5 February 1997 (in Spanish)
  20. ^ The movement that shaped the Lebanon pullout The Jerusalem Post, 8 June 2000 (republished on Women and Mothers for Peace)
  21. ^ Fabian, Emanuel. "IDF to evacuate civilians from 28 communities along Lebanese border amid attacks". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  22. ^ Fabian, Emanuel (2024-07-21). "Rockets hit empty school, preschool in north after IDF strikes arms depot in Lebanon". Times of Israel.

Bibliography

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