AL-QABU – JERUSALEM DISTRICT
31°43′40″N / 35°7′11″E
1948: Population 302; Houses 48
Occupation date: October 22, 1948
Occupying forces: Sixth Battalion of the Harʼel Brigade
Occupying operation: Operation Ha-Har (“The Mountain”)
Post 1948: On May 1, 1949, the Israeli military entered the village and detonated the houses.10 In April 1950 Mevo Beitar (a cooperative village) was established on village land by immigrants from Argentina and native Israelis of the Beitar movement (a revisionist Zionist Youth group founded in 1923). The JNF’s Begin Park was later established to commemorate the sixth Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, with a picnic site beside the ruins of the village’s former mosque.
Today: The rubble of former houses is scattered throughout the woods of the JNF park. The shrine of al-Sheikh Ahmad al-‛Umari remains beneath a tree on a hillside near a spring and a steep series of steps descends to the ancient spring and cistern.
Official Israeli name: Hurbat Qovi (lit., “Qovi Ruin”), the ancient name of the place.