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Bil'in

بعلين
Bil'in بعلين
Village
	Etymology: Balin, from personal name
	1870s map 1940s map modern map 1940s with modern overlay map A series of historical maps of the area around Bil'in, Gaza (click the buttons)
	Bil'in Location within Mandatory Palestine
	Coordinates: 31°41′20″N 34°49′11″E / 31.68889°N 34.81972°E
Palestine grid	132/121
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Gaza
Date of depopulation	Not known
Area
• Total	8,036 dunams (8.036 km2 or 3.103 sq mi)
Population (1945)
• Total	180
Current Localities	Qedma

Bil'in was a Palestinian Arab village in the Gaza Subdistrict. It was depopulated by the Israel Defense Forces during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War 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.

Etymology

Biʽīln derives from Canaanite/Hebrew ba'lin (ba'als).^[6]

History

Bil'in did not appear in records from the 16th century. It was a small village in the 19th century, settled by families that were once nomads in the Shephelah and had origins in Bayt Jibrin and Iraq al-Manshiyya.^[7]

In 1838 it was noted as a Muslim village, Ba'lin, in the Gaza district,^[8] being smaller than nearby Barqusya.^[9]

In 1863 Victor Guérin noted it as a small village on a mound.^[10]

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described it as being a small adobe village, "with no traces of antiquity."^[11]

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bil'in had a population of 101 Muslims,^[12] increasing by the 1931 census to 127, still all Muslim, in 32 houses.^[13]

In the 1945 statistics, the village together with Ard el Ishra had a population of 180 Muslims,^[2] and the land area was 8,036 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.^[3] Of this, 143 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 6,972 for cereals,^[14] while 6 dunams were built-up areas.^[15]

Bi'lin had an elementary school which was founded in 1937 and a shrine for al-Shaykh Ya'qub.^[16]

Post 1948

Qedma started using some of the village land after 1948.^[5]

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."^[5]

References

^ Palmer, 1881, p.265
^ ^a ^b Government of Palestine,Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 31
^ ^a ^b ^c Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 45
^ Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #290. Morris gives both cause and date for depopulation as "Not known"
^ ^a ^b ^c Khalidi, 1992, p. 91
^ Marom, Roy; Zadok, Ran (2023). "Early-Ottoman Palestinian Toponymy: A Linguistic Analysis of the (Micro-)Toponyms in Haseki Sultan's Endowment Deed (1552)". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 139 (2).
^ 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. 380
^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 119
^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol. 2, p. 368
^ Guérin, 1869, p. 121
^ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 409, cited in Khalidi, 1992, p.90
^ Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Gaza, p. 9
^ Mills, 1932, p. 3
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 86
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 136
^ Khalidi, 1992, p. 90