Suruh

Suruh (Arabic: سروح‎) was a Palestinian Arab hamlet, located 28.5 kilometers (17.7 mi) northeast of Acre. It became depopulated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

History

Suruh contained two khirbats ("sites of ruins") with a variety of ancient artifacts, including cisterns, and rock-hewn tombs.

Ottoman era

A 1875 visitor, Victor Guérin, describes it as a ruin, which he called Khurbet Seroueh. Guérin noted; "These ruins cover the summit of the hill. At the highest point we observed the remains of a very ancient square tower, measuring fourteen paces on each side, the lower courses consisting of very large blocks, roughly squared and without cement. The interior is full of similar blocks, piled up in confusion, in the midst of which terebinths and pomegranates have taken root. Near this tower a few old houses served as an asylum to four families of Metawileh. On the lintel of the door of one of these houses a square cross inscribed in a circle can still be traced. The terraces of another house are supported in the interior by arched arcades in good cut stone of Roman, or at least Byzantine, date. There are also the remains of numerous houses which have been destroyed, a dozen cisterns cut in the rock, a column lying on the ground, and the fragment of a sarcophagus."