The sale included about 40,000 dunams of land (roughly 10,000 acres) within the Tulkarm subdistrict; the area sold is also considered to be "Wadi al-Huwarith," not just the village.

That year, the Jewish National Fund acquired lands amounting to 30,800 dunams at auction from absentee landlords and initiated legal proceedings to evict the current tenants, who were Bedouin Palestinians that were resisting their removal.

The British-appointed Shaw Commission notes that a "state of extreme apprehension" gripped the Palestinian public at large, whose members feared that they too would suffer the same fate of displacement at the hands of Jewish colonists.

[6] The absentee owners of the land were the Tayans, a wealthy Christian family from Beirut, members of the urban Levantine merchant elite who "had accumulated extensive landholdings by the end of the Ottoman era.

[7] These court proceedings were highly publicized in Palestine—"the lead story in the Arabic press" during early summer 1933— and ultimately contributed to the increased militancy of nationalist organizations during the period.

[15] The Arab Liberation Army instructed in mid-February 1948 the inhabitants of Wadi al-Hawarith to evacuate their women and property to the Palestinian area, which it is unclear if they did.

[16] In early May, advisers of the Alexandroni Brigade recommended destroying the homes in Wadi al-Hawarith, except those of stone "that may be made fit for human [i.e., Jewish] habitation".

These mass evacuations coincide with the end of the citrus-picking season, which many observers expect will herald the beginning of large scale Arab assaults on the coastal area.