Aqir

Aqir (also spelled Akir and Akkur ) was a Palestinian Arab village in the District of Ramle located 9 km southwest of Ramla and 1 km north of Wadi al-Nasufiyya.¹ Until the early 20th century, Aqir was thought to lie at the site of the ancient Philistine city of Ekron , that has now been identified as Tel Mikne , 9 km to the south. The Romans referred to the village as Accaron . Etymologically, all these names stem from a common root (A-K-R). In 1596, Aqir (Amir) appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Ramla of the Liwa of Gaza. It had a population of 31 Muslim households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, and other produce. In the 1870s, Aqir was described as "a mud village on low rising ground, with cactus hedges surrounding its gardens, and a well to the north." At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine, Aqir had a population of 1155 Muslims. This had increased to 1689 Muslims and 2 Christians by the census of 1931. Between 1941 and 1948, the RAF Aqir air base was located nearby. As of 1945 the village had a population of 2,480 with two elementary schools: one for boys, founded in 1921 which had an enrollment of 391 boys in 1945 and a second for girls, which had an enrollment of 46 girls in 1945. There were two mosques in the village. The village was depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War on May 6, 1948 during Operation Barak by the Giv'ati Brigade . The village was integrated into Kiryat Ekron soon after. article Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine . Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center. : Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= ( help ) Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Kamal Abdulfattah (1977). The Survey of Western Palestine . Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas .²