Bil'in was a Palestinian Arab village in the Gaza Subdistrict. It was depopulated by the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...

during the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...

on July 8, 1948, under Operation An-Far. It was located 39 km northeast of Gaza and the village contained two wells which supplied it with drinking water.

History

In 1838 it was noted as a

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

village, ''Ba'lin'', in the Gaza district, being smaller than nearby

Barqusya Barqusya (also: Barkusya, ar, بركوسيا) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Hebron Subdistrict, depopulated in the 1948 Palestine War. It was located 31 km northwest of Hebron. History In 1838, in the Ottoman era, ''Berkusia'' ...

. In 1863

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Mino ...

noted it as a small village on a mound. In 1882, the PEF's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described it as being a small

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

village, "with no traces of antiquity."

British Mandate era

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bil'in had a population of 101 Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Gaza, p
9
/ref> increasing by the 1931 census to 127, still all Muslim, in 32 houses.Mills, 1932, p
3
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, the village together with ''Ard el Ishra'' had a population of 180 Muslims, and the land area was 8,036

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...

s, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 143 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 6,972 for cereals, while 6 dunams were built-up areas. Bi'lin had an elementary school which was founded in 1937 and a shrine for al-Shaykh Ya'qub.Khalidi, 1992, p. 90 Idhnibba 1945

Post 1948

Qedma started using some of the village land after 1948. In 1992 the village site was described: "All that remains is the rubble of a few houses, with wild herbs and thorns growing on the site, along with some trees and cactus plants. The site is surrounded by barbed wire. Parts of the surrounding land are planted with mango trees and grapes, while others serve as pastures."

References

Bibliography

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External links

Welcome To Bi'linBi'lin
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16
IAAWikimedia commons
from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Gaza