illtop above Saffuriya. In the early 19th century, the British traveller J. Buckingham noted that all the inhabitants of Saffuriya were Muslim, and that the house of St. Anna had been completely demolished.
In the late 19th century, Saffuriyya was described as village built of stone and mud, situated along the slope of a hill. The village contained the remains of the Church of St. Anna and a square tower, said to have been built in the mid-18th century. The village had an estimated 2,500 residents, who cultivated 150 faddans (1 faddan = 100-250 dunums), on some of this land they had planted olive trees. In 1900, an elementary school for boys was founded, and later, a school for girls. A local council was established in 1923. The expenditure of the council grew from 74 Palestinian pounds in 1929 to 1,217 in 1944.
Though it lost its centrality and importance as a cultural centre under the Ottomans (1517-1918) and the British Mandate (1918–1948), the village thrived agriculturally. Saffuriyya's pomegranates, olives and wheat were famous throughout the Galilee.
In summer of 1931, archaeologist Leroy Waterman began the first excavations at Saffuriya, digging up part of the school playground, formerly the site of a Crusader fortress.
In 1944/45 a total of 21,841 dunums of village land was used for cereals, 5,310 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, mostly olive trees. By 1948, Saffuriya was the largest village in the Galilee both by land size and population, which was estimated at 4,000 Arabs.
On July 1, 1948, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the village was bombarded by Israeli planes. It was captured by Israeli forces along with the rest of the lower Galilee in Operation Dekel. All but 80 of the villagers fled northwards toward Lebanon, some settling in the refugee camps of Ein al-Hilwa, Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon. After the attack, the villagers returned but were evicted again in September 1948. On January 7, 1949, 14
