Al-Nabi Yusha'

During the late eighteenth century, a family known as al-GhuI established the shrine for Nabi Yusha’ ("Prophet Joshua"), which included a mosque and a building for visitors, as an act of devotion. This family, also called the "servants of the shrine," numbered about fifty and were the first to settle the site; they cultivated the surrounding land, and the place subsequently evolved into a village.^[2]

The village was a Lebanese Shi'a village, part of South Lebanon. The inhabitants were legally recognized as Lebanese and were all Lebanese nationals. This changed when the Zionists demanded more land, the village was then moved from Lebanese control, to the British Mandate of Palestine. The Sykes-Picot agreement granted the Zionists control of the Lebanese village. ^[3]

During the Mandate period, the British built a police station in the village.^[2] The people of al-Nabi Yusha’, all of whom were Shia Muslims, held an annual mawsim, or pilgrimage and festival on the fifteenth of the month Sha'aban (the eighth month of the Islamic calendar). The Mawsim was similar to that of the Al-Nabi Rubin, Ramla festival.^[2]

The village was home to 52 residents in 1931 (12 households), growing to 70 in 1945, and 81 (18 households) by 1948 when it was depopulated. The village occupied an area of 3,617 dunams, all private except for a 1 dunam public land.^[4]

Al-Nabi Yusha' was depopulated on May 16, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War under Operation Yiftach lead by Israeli army officer Yigal Alon who later became a key Zionist figure. Most of its residents ended up in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. In 1998, the decedents of Al-Nabi Yusha' refugees were estimated at 499.

The Israeli settlement of Ramot Naftali has been built on Al-Nabi Yusha' land, south of the village site. It is located close to the border between Al-Nabi Yusha' and the lands of the Palestinian village of Mallaha.^[2]

The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi described the village remains in 1992 as: "The site has been fenced in with barbed wire and is buried under rubble, making access difficult. However, some evidence of the village remains: fragments of houses, tombs in the village's cemetery, and the shrine of al-Nabi Yusha'. The two domes and arched entrance of the main part of the shrine are still intact, but the thick stone walls of the rooms attached to it are broken and the entire complex of buildings is neglected; weeds sprouts from the roof. The village site is surrounded by fig trees and cactuses,. The flat lands around the site are planted by Israeli farmers with apple trees, while the sloping parts are wooded or used as pasture."^[5]

The shrine was surveyed by the British School of Archaelology in 1994, who described it as rectangular structure formed around a courtyard, aligned north-south, which was entered through a gateway on the north end. The principal rooms were at the south end of the courtyard, with two major domed chambers, of which the west chamber was found to be the oldest in the whole shrine complex.^[6]

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• Metzudat Koach
• Metawali
• Seven Lebanese Villages

• Welcome To al-Nabi Yusha', Palestine Remembered
• al-Nabi Yusha', at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
• Al-Nabi Yusha’, Dr. Khalil Rizk.
• UN map of the 1947 plan
• The Destroyed Palestinian Villages on Google Earth