The Peak; Hebrew and Phoenician: דור, Dor)[6] was a Palestinian Arab fishing village located 8 kilometers (5 mi) northwest of Zikhron Ya'akov[7] on the Mediterranean coast of Israel.

The village was targeted in the early stages of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, with its houses looted and its Arab Palestinian inhabitants expelled and others massacred by the Palmach underground Alexandroni Brigade.

[12] Dor was the most southern settlement of the Phoenicians on the coast of Syria and a center for the manufacture of Tyrian purple, extracted from the murex snail found there in abundance.

[14] Josephus Flavius in his Antiquities of the Jews (14:333) describes Dor as an unsatisfactory port where goods had to be transported by lighters from ships at sea.

Dora was the city where Antiochus, ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire with the aid of Simon Maccabaeus, laid siege to the usurper Trypho.

[19] The settlement migrated off the ancient tel to the area east of it, centering on the church complex, which served as a way-station for pilgrims traveling to the holy places.

[20] In the Middle Ages, a small fort surrounded by a moat was built on the southwestern promontory of the tell, overlooking the entrance to the southern bay.

Dor has been identified with the Crusader principality of Merle, although excavations at the site, known in Arabic as Khirbet el-Burj, indicate that the moat was dug later, in the 13th century.

Zahir al-Umar carried out a policy of expansion of trade, increasing the capacity of the port at Tantura, as well as those of Haifa and Acre.

[24] After the failure of his campaign, his troops retreated to Tantura, where he hoped to evacuate by sea, but his navy failed to appear.

[26] Mary Rogers, sister of the British vice-consul in Haifa, reported that in 1855 there were 30–40 houses in the village, with cattle and goats as the chief source of income.

It is a sad and sickly hamlet of wretched huts on a naked sea-beach, with a marshy flat between it and the base of the eastern hills.

The sheikh's residence and the public menzûl for travellers are the only respectable houses, Dor never could have been a large city, for there are no remains.

The entrance to which would be by the inlet at the foot of the Kùsr; and should "Dor and her towns" ever rise again into wealth and importance such a harbour will assuredly be made'.

[29] In 1882, in the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine, Tantura was described as a village on the coast with a harbour located to the north, and a square, stone building used as a guest house for travellers (probably the khan referred to by Buckingham).

[30] In 1884 Mordechai Bonstein, a Russian Jewish farmer pioneer from Rosh Pinna, moved to Tantura to farm a tract of land owned by Baron Edmond de Rothschild.

[7] A building was constructed under the supervision of Meir Dizengoff, a French glass specialist was brought in, dozens of workers were hired, and three ships were purchased to transport raw material and bottles.

[33] There were two Islamic holy sites in the village, including a maqam (shrine) dedicated to an Abd ar-Rahman Sa'd ad-Din.

Some of the inhabitants were civil servants, working as policemen, customs officials and clerks at the Haifa Magistrates court.

[44] On May 11, David Ben-Gurion advised the Haganah to "focus on its primary task", which according to the New Historian, Ilan Pappe, was the bi'ur (lit.

[45] According to Tiroshi Eitan (a local commander), the people of Tantura were ready to surrender in early May but not prepared to relinquish their arms.

In early May, the population was reportedly ready to surrender if attacked or given an ultimatum, but was not to give up their weapons, and some residents began fleeing after an incident in which a local man murdered a Jew and was in turn killed.

Perhaps heartened by the arrival of Arab forces in Israel/Palestine in mid-May, Tantura's villagers and those of surrounding towns decided to remain and fight.

[50][51][52][a][b][c] Most of the villagers were expelled to the nearby town of Fureidis and territory protected by the Arab League in the Triangle region near to what was to become the Green Line.

[48] On May 31, 1948, Bechor Shitrit, Minister of Minority Affairs of the Provisional government of Israel, sought permission to expel them due to overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and the risk of information being passed to unconquered villages.