In 1956, about of land in the area that is now Karmiel, owned by residents of the nearby Israeli Arab villages of Deir al-Asad, Bi'ina and Nahf, were declared "closed areas" by Israeli authorities. This area, near the main road between Acre and Safed, had been an important marble quarrying site. In 1961, the Israeli authorities expropriated the land to build Karmiel. The villagers offered "equally good land" in the area, but when Moshe Sneh (Maki) and Yusef Khamis (Mapam) brought the case to the Knesset on behalf of the villagers, the Knesset established that there was no such land. According to the Haredi newspaper She'arim, about (394 lots) were confiscated by a court order on 4 March 1963, at the request of the Israel Development Authority. However, the land was rocky, uninhabited and unfit for agriculture.