Iqrit

The village was located on a steep hill a few kilometers from the Lebanese border. It overlooked uneven terrain on the east and Wadi al-Bassa (which descended towards the sea) on the west. A secondary road, on which a good number of villages were also located, linked it to the Acre-Ra's al-Naqura coastal highway. Iqrit could be traced back to the Canaanites, who erected a statue on the site representing the god Melqart of Tyre. The Crusaders occupied it and called it Acref. Like other villages in Palestine, Iqrit was devastated by the events of the Crusades. It was subsequently rebuilt, and by 1596 this village in the nahiya of Tibnin (liwa' of Safad) had a population of 374. It paid taxes on goats and beehives and on its press, which was used for processing either olives or grapes. In the late nineteenth century, Iqrit had a population of about 100. The buildings in the village were made of stone and included a modern chapel. Situated on a tell, the village was surrounded by arable land, which the villagers planted with fig and olive trees.

When the British and French defined the border between Lebanon and Palestine in 1923, they included Iqrit in Palestine. Iqrit's population was made up of 460 Christians and 30 Muslims. The Greek Catholic Archdiocese built and ran a private elementary school in the village. Numerous crops were cultivated on its land, such as wheat, barley, olives, figs, grapes, and tobacco. In 1944/45 a total of 1,888 dunums was allocated to cereals; 458 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 80 dunums were planted in olive trees. Most of the land, however, was wooded with oak and pine trees. The tell over which Iqrit was built contained mosaic floors, the remains of a wine press, rock-hewn tombs, cisterns, and granite implements. Other archaeological sites were located in the vicinity.