[15] Sabbarin was captured by Israeli forces on May 12, 1948, during the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine in Operation Coastal Clearing.

More than one hundred people who had not fled, including the elderly, women, and children, were held behind barbed wire for a few days before being expelled to nearby Umm al-Fahm.

[17] Historian Saleh Abdel Jawad writes that a massacre was committed by the Irgun in the village on 12-14 May.

[13] Khalidi described the remains of the village in 1992: The large site, strewn with the stone debris of houses, is overgrown with wild thorns.

[13]Sabbarin is among the Palestinian villages for which commemorative Marches of Return have taken place, such as those organized by the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced.