Arabic بريكة Also spelled Bureika, Ibraikeh Palestine grid 148/213 Local time Tuesday 2:17 AM | Name meaning The little pool Date of depopulation 5 May 1948 | |
 | ||
Weather 12°C, Wind NE at 6 km/h, 70% Humidity | ||
Burayka was a Palestinian Arab village in the Haifa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on May 5, 1948. It was located 29 km south of Haifa.
Contents
History
The Crusaders called the place for Broiquet.
Ottoman era
In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as "a small village on a hill-top, with a well to the north, and wooded country round." A school, founded in 1889 during the Ottoman period, was located in the village, but was closed during the British Mandate period.
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Ibraikeh had a population of 249, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 237, still all Muslims, in 45 houses.
In 1945 the village had a population of 290 Muslims, and Arabs had a total of 1,864 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 78 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 1,538 for cereals, while 15 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
1948, aftermath
Initially, the villagers did not want to take part in the war, and they opposed garrisoning ALA militiamen in their village.
According to Yishuv sources, the AHC had in early March, 1948, ordered the villagers to evacuate, so that it could serve as a base for Arab irregular forces, However, most of the villagers seems to have stayed in the village at this stage. The village was finally depopulated in early May, in the aftermath of the Battle of Mishmar HaEmek, when IZL attacked the remaining villages in the area with mortar fire.
Today, a civilian explosives factory is located on the site.