al-Qubayba, also known as Qubeiba, was a Palestinian village, located 24 kilometers northwest of Hebron. It was depopulated in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
In 1517, Al-Qubayba was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the nahiya of Gaza under the liwa' of Gaza. It had a population of 33 Muslim household, an estimated 182 persons. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, sesame, and fruit trees, as well as goats and beehives; a total of 4,600 akçe. 11/24 of the revenue went to a Waqf. In 1838 Edward Robinson noted 200 reapers and gleaners at work in a field near Al-Qubayba. He added: "Some were taking their refreshment, and offered us some of their "parched corn." In the season of harvest, the grains of wheat, not yet fully dry and hard, are roasted in a pan or an iron plate, and constitute a very palliative article of bread; this is eaten along with bread, or instead of it." Robinson further noted Kubeibeh as a Muslim village, in the Gaza district. In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Al-Qubayba as a large village built of adobe brick, situated on rolling hills near a plain, surrounded by a barren and stony area.
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Al-Qubaiba had a population of 646, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 800, still all Muslim, in a total of 141 houses. The village had a school, a mosque, and a number of small shops. Two wells located northwest and southwest of it provided drinking water. In the 1945 statistics the population of Al-Qubayba was 1,060, all Muslims, who owned 11.912 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 8109 dunams were for cereals while 35 dunams were built-up land.
1948 and aftermath
Al-Qubayba was in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan. The village was first attacked during Operation Barak. Though defended by Egyptian forces, al-Qubayba was taken by Israeli forces in the final stages of Operation Yoav on 28 October 1948. The population had fled and the village was destroyed. The area was subsequently incorporated into the State of Israel and in 1955 the moshav of Lakhish was established to the southwest of the village site on what had been village lands. Of the village mosque, an elementary school, and more than 141 houses that made up al-Qubayba, Walid Khalidi notes that all that remains to mark the site in contemporary times are cacti and a handful of olive trees.
Culture
A woman's thob, from Qubeiba dated to about 1910 forms part of the Museum of International Folk Art collection at Santa Fe. The dress is a collage of different fabrics, textures and colors. The front and the upper half of the back are of black cotton. The chest panel, the side panels and the lower back of the skirt are handwoven indigolinen. Colorful silkcross-stitchembroidery, in red, violet, orange, yellow, green and black, create an effect described as "particularly gay, twinkling" The qabbeh is embroidered with the qurunful motif, and it has vertical rows of eight-pointed stars, called qamr, and a row of the mushut pattern. There are eight embroidered columns on each side panel of the dress. The patterns which are used are fanajin qahweh, khem-el-basha, irq el-ward, and miftah Khalil. There is also a pattern not seen anywhere else in the MOMA collection. Finally, there is also some embroidery at the wrists.
