Bruqin () is a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

town 13 kilometers west of Salfit in the

Salfit Governorate Salfit Governorate () is one of the 16 Governorates of the Palestinian National Authority, Governorates of the State of Palestine. It is located in the northwestern West Bank, held under Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Israeli occupation ...

of the

State of Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

, in the northern

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, adjacent to the

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

of Brukhin, which was built over lands confiscated from the Palestinian town.Bruqin Town Profile
ARIJ, 2013, p. 17 According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ) is the official statistical institution of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures at the national and international levels. It is a state institution that provid ...

, Bruqin had a population of 4,047 in 2017. The town used to be on a camel-trading route. There is evidence of Roman rule in the city due to the presence of three ancient pools and a tomb.Bruqin Village Profile
International Women's Peace Service.

Location

Bruqin is located west of Salfit. It is bordered by Salfit and Farkha to the east, Qarawat Bani Zaid, Kafr 'Ein and

Bani Zeid Bani Zeid () is a Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate of Palestine, in the north-central West Bank, located northwest of Ramallah, about 45 kilometers northwest of Jerusalem and about southwest of Salfit. A town of ove ...

to the south,

Kafr ad Dik Kafr ad-Dik () is a Palestinian territories, Palestinian town located 9.5 kilometers west of Salfit in the Salfit Governorate of Palestine, in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the town had ...

to the west, and Haris and

Sarta Sarta () is a Palestinian town in the Salfit Governorate in the northern West Bank, 22 kilometers southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of approximately 3,382 in 2017. Location Sart ...

to the north.

History

Bruqin is an ancient site. Here French explorer

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

found a large number of cut stones in the walls of modern houses, and an ancient tomb near the village with two sepulchral chambers.

Sherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

s from the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...

Crusader Crusader or Crusaders may refer to: Military * Crusader, a participant in one of the Crusades * Convair NB-36H Crusader, an experimental nuclear-powered bomber * Crusader tank, a British cruiser tank of World War II * Crusaders (guerrilla), a C ...

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...

and

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

eras have been found here.

Ottoman era

The place appeared in 1596 Ottoman tax registers as Bruqin, being in the ''

Nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'' of Jabal Qubal of the '' Liwa'' of

Nablus Nablus ( ; , ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 156,906. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a ...

. It had a population of 16 households, all

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

. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, and goats or beehives, in addition for a press for olives or grapes; a total of 2,000

Akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 134. Bruqin appears in tax records from the years 1671 and 1832.Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 354 In the 18th and 19th centuries, the village formed part of the highland region known as Jūrat ‘Amra or Bilād Jammā‘īn. Situated between Dayr Ghassāna in the south and the present Route 5 in the north, and between Majdal Yābā in the west and Jammā‘īn, Mardā and Kifl Ḥāris in the east, this area served, according to historian

Roy Marom Roy Marom (, ) is an Israeli historian and historical geographer. Marom is the curator of the Palestinian Rural History Project, which specializes in the history of the Palestinian countryside during the Ottoman and British Mandate periods. ...

, "as a buffer zone between the political-economic-social units of the

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and the

regions. On the political level, it suffered from instability due to the migration of the

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

tribes and the constant competition among local clans for the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Ottoman authorities." In 1838, Edward Robinson noted it as a village, ''Berukin'', in the ''Jurat Merda'' district, south of Nablus. In 1870,

estimated that the village had 300 inhabitants. In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'' (sub-district) of Jamma'in al-Thani, subordinate to Nablus. In 1882, PEF's ''

Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...

'', the village (called ''Berukin'') was described as a "moderate-sized village on the end of a spur, with a steep slope to the valley beneath, in which are springs just below the houses. On the south are caves, on the north olives."

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 divis ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bruqin had a population of 367, all

s,Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Nablus, p
26
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 534, again all Muslim, in a total of 90 houses. In the 1945 statistics the population was 690, all Muslims, while the total land area was 12,628

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 3,175 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 2,301 for cereals, while 28 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

, and after the

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule. In 1961, the population was 1,141.

Post-1967

Since the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

in 1967, Bruqin has been under

Israeli occupation Israel has occupied the Golan Heights of Syria and the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967. It has previously occupied the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and southern Lebanon as well. Prior to 1967, control of the Palestinian terr ...

. Its villagers state that after 1987, the toxic output from Israeli industries located in settlement areas has produced chronic health problems for local Palestinians.

Occupation of village lands

After the 1995 accords, 8.4% of village land is defined as being in Area A, 35.8% in Area B, while the remainder 55.8% is in

Area C Area C (; ) is the fully Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank, defined as the whole area outside the Palestinian enclaves (Areas A and B). Area C constitutes about 61 percent of the West Bank territory, containing most Israeli settle ...

. In 1981, Israel confiscated 684 dunams of village land for the Barqan Industrial Zone, and in 1990 confiscated 332 dunums of village land for the

of Bruchin. In 2014 the Shomron Regional Council began work to develop a 25-acre farm on a hill just northwest of Bruqin, forming part of 110 acres belonging to the nearby Palestinian villages of Adiq and

Biddya Biddya () is a Palestinian city in the Salfit Governorate, located 32 kilometers southwest of Nablus and half that distance from Salfit in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Biddya had a ...

. Though Adiq is in Area A, under Palestinian jurisdiction, its village lands lie in

, where Palestinian construction is prohibited, and which Israel declared its state land in 1985. Access to the farmland is through Bruqin's land, which is planted with their olive groves. The apparent intent is to create territorial continuity between the Green line and the Israeli settlement of

Ariel Ariel may refer to: Film and television *Ariel Award, a Mexican Academy of Film award * ''Ariel'' (film), a 1988 Finnish film by Aki Kaurismäki *, a Russian film directed by Yevgeni Kotov * ''ARIEL Visual'' and ''ARIEL Deluxe'', a 1989 and 1991 ...

, via new settlements such as Leshem and Bruchin. According to Bruqin villages, use of the access road is illegal, and Israel is blocking the villages' own roads to

Economy

Around 70% of working-age males were employed in Israel as laborers prior to the

Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...

. Today, the unemployment rate is 80%. There is agricultural work it is seasonal. Around 150 out of 500 families are dependent on aid, from the

Red Cross The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...

or the Social Affairs Ministry of the Palestinian National Authority. There are two mosques, a youth club and a gym in the town. There are also three schools in the town, including an all-girls school for grades 1 to 12, a boys primary and secondary school and a boys high school. For hospital care, residents travel to

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...

, but for emergency treatment they go to nearby Salfit. Bruqin depends primarily on agriculture to meet its basic needs. The town's total land area is 13,237

s, of which 1,336 dunams is built-up area. Around 1,200 dunams are planted with orchards, especially olive, about 3,000 dunams of land is used for shepherding while approximately 8,000 dunams are used for settlement purposes, including settlements and by-pass roads.More of Bruqin's and Kafr Ad Dik's land are targeted by the Segregation Wall
Land Research Center (LRC). 2007-03-05

Government

Bruqin is governed by a municipal council, with elections scheduled to occur every four years.

Demography

The main families of the town are Barakat, Sabra, Samara and Khater. A number of its inhabitants have, in more recent times, originated from Deir Ghassana.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14:
IAAWikimedia commons

Bruqin Village Profile
iwps.info
Bruqin Town (Fact Sheet)

Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research projects in the fields of management of natural resources, water m ...

(ARIJ)
Bruqin Town Profile
ARIJ
Bruqin photo
ARIJ
Development Priorities and Needs in Bruqin
ARIJ
Bruchin settlement expands on lands of Bruqin village
08, October, 2011, POICA
Torching 340 Trees in Bruqin – Salfit Governorate
14, November, 2011, POICA {{Authority control Salfit Governorate Towns in Salfit Governorate Municipalities of West Bank Municipalities of Palestine