Arabic بعلين Palestine grid 132/121 Area 8,036 dunams | Subdistrict Gaza Population 180 (1945) Current locality Kedma | |
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Name meaning Balin, from personal name | ||
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.
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History
In 1863 Victor Guérin noted it as a small village on a mound.
In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it as being a small adobe village, "with no traces of antiquity."
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bait Tima had a population of 101 inhabitants, all Muslims, increasing by the 1931 census to 127, still all Muslim, in 32 houses.
in 1945, the village together with Ard el Ishra had a population of 180 Muslims, and the land area was 8,036 dunams, 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.