Burqa ( ar, بُرقه) is a
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
village in the
Nablus Governorate
The Nablus Governorate ( ar, محافظة نابلس ') is an administrative district of State of Palestine, Palestine located in the Central Highlands of the West Bank, 53 km north of Jerusalem. It covers the area around the city of Nablus ...
in northern
West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, located northwest of
Nablus
Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...
. According to the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ar, الجهاز المركزي للإحصاء الفلسطيني) is the official
statistical institution of the State of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures a ...
(PCBS), the village had a population of 4,030 inhabitants in mid-year 2006.
Location
Burqa is located northwest of
Nablus
Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...
. It is bordered by
Beit Imrin and
Nisf Jubeil to the east,
Jaba’,
Fandaqumiya
Fandaqumiya, ( ar, الفندقومية, ''al-Fandaqumiyah'', ''Pentakomia'') is a Palestinian village located in the Jenin Governorate of the northern West Bank, northwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, th ...
,
Silat ad-Dhahr
Silat ad-Dhahr ( ar, سيلة الظهر) is a Palestinian town in the Jenin Governorate in the northern West Bank, located 22 kilometers southwest of Jenin. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) census, the town had a ...
, and
Al ‘Attara to the north, ‘
Anabta,
Bizzariya and
Ramin
Ramin or Rameen, transliterated from Rāmin (Persian: رامین), is a Persian masculine given name of Zoroastrian origin. It is also an occasional surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given name
* Ramin Bahrani, Iranian-American wr ...
to the west, and
Deir Sharaf
Deir Sharaf ( ar, دير شرف) is a Palestinian town in the Nablus Governorate in northern West Bank, located northwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the town had a population of 2,759 inhabitants ...
and
Sabastiya to the south.
History
Ceramics from the late
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
era have been found here,
[Zertal, 2004, pp]
419
420 as has ceramics from the
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
era,
[ and Early ]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 ...
era.[
]
Ottoman era
Burqa was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the ''Nahiya
A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also 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 division w ...
'' of ''Jabal Sami'', part of the Sanjak of Nablus
The Nablus Sanjak ( ar, سنجق نابلس; tr, Nablus Sancağı) was an administrative area that existed throughout Ottoman rule in the Levant (1517–1917). It was administratively part of the Damascus Eyalet until 1864 when it became part o ...
. It had a population of 15 households, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on various agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, goats or beehives, a press for olives or grapes, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 5,132 akçe
The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is deri ...
.[Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 125]
In 1838, Edward Robinson described Burqa as "a large village situated upon a sort of terrace on the side of the northern ridge, overlooking the whole basin of Sebustieh." He further noted that the village had a mixture of Greek Christians and Muslim inhabitants.[Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.]
128
/ref>
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 ...
found the village to have one thousand inhabitants.
In 1882, the 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 Survey of Western Palestine and in 1880 for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. The survey was carried out after the ...
'' described Burka as a "A large stone village on a terrace, with a good grove of olives and two springs to the west, and well to the south. The road ascends the pass through the village. There are cactus hedges round the gardens north of the village, and a large threshing-floor in the middle of the place which is built in a straggling manner along the hill-side. Some of its inhabitants are Greek Christians."
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, Burqa had a population of 1,688; 1,589 Muslims and 99 Christians,[Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Nablus, p]
24
/ref> where the Christians were 56 Orthodox, 41 Roman Catholics and 2 Church of England.[Barron, 1923, Table XV, p]
47
/ref> In the 1931 census it had 448 houses and a population of 1,890; 1,785 Muslims and 105 Christians.
In the 1945 statistics, Burqa had a population of 2,590; 2,410 Muslims and 180 Christians,[Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p]
18
/ref> with 18,486 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 of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 2,451 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 8,283 used for cereals, while 173 dunams were built-up land.
There were Christians living in the village until 1946, when they moved to Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
.
Jordanian era
In the wake of 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 ...
, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,[Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...](_blank)
ian rule.
The Jordanian census of 1961 found 3,352 inhabitants.
Post 1967
Since the Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 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, S ...
in 1967, Burqa has been under Israeli occupation
Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to a ...
. The population in the 1967 census conducted by Israel was 2,477, of whom 92 originated from the Israeli territory.
After the 1995 accords, 27% of the village land is defined as being in Area A
Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an open s ...
, 29% in Area B
The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The enclaves are often compared to the nominally self-governing black ...
, while the remaining 44% is defined as being Area C land. Israel confiscated 1,014 dunams of land from Burqa in order to establish the Israeli settlement
Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...
of Homesh
Homesh ( he, חֹמֶשׁ, חומש) was an Israeli settlement in the West Bank along Route 60, illegally built over private Palestinian land. The settlement was under the administrative jurisdiction of the Shomron Regional Council. In 2005, the ...
.[ The settlement was evacuated in 2005, but later used by the Israelis as a military base.][ Burqa village profile]
ARIJ, pp. 15-16
In 2017 construction of a women's centre funded by UN Women
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women, is a United Nations entity working for gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women advocates for the rights of women and girls, and focu ...
and Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
was done and the centre was subsequently named Dalal Mughrabi
Dalal Mughrabi ( ar, دلال المغربي, ; ''c.'' 1959 – 11 March 1978) was a Palestinian militant who was a member of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and participated in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre ...
Women Community Center after a Palestinian woman who was killed in 1978 when she with 8 other militants in 1978 hijacked two buses in Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, an incident which claimed the lives of 38 civilians, of whom many were children. As she is considered a terrorist in Norway, the Norwegian government asked for their funds to be reimbursed as Norway does not support violence.
References
Bibliography
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External links
Welcome to Burqa
Burqa
Welcome to Palestine
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 11:
IAA
Wikimedia commons
Burqa village profile
Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem
The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ar, معهد الابحاث التطبيقية - القدس) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research project ...
(ARIJ)
Burqa (aerial photo)
ARIJ
Development priorities and needs in Burqa
ARIJ
{{Nablus Governorate
Nablus Governorate
Villages in the West Bank
Throne villages
Municipalities of the State of Palestine