The remains of a
vault, dating to the
Crusader era have been found here. During the
Mamluk era, a
waqf stipulated that the whole of the revenue from Bir Nabala should got to the
ad-Dawādāriyya Madrasa in Jerusalem. The building was completed in 695 AH/1295−1296CE.
Ottoman era In 1517, the village was included in the
Ottoman Empire with the rest of
Palestine and in the 1596
tax-records it appeared as
Bir Nabala, located in the
Nahiya of Jabal Quds of the
Liwa of
Al-Quds. The population was 4 households and 2 bachelors, all
Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, which included wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 1,300
akçe. In 1738
Richard Pococke named it
Beerna–billiah, seeing it "on a hill to the east". In 1838
Edward Robinson noted Bir Nebala on his travels in the region, as a Muslim village in
El Kuds region. In May, 1863
Guérin found it to have about 130 inhabitants. He further noted remains from the Crusader era and a few
rock-cut tombs, one of them still in use by the locals. An official Ottoman village list sometime around 1870 listed
Bir Nebala as having 24 houses and a population of 100, though the population count included only men. In 1883, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as "a village of moderate size, standing high, with a valley to the west. There are a few olives round the place." In 1896 the population of Bir Nebala was estimated to be about 420 persons.
British Mandate era In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, Bir Nebala had a population of 367 Muslims, increasing in the
1931 census to 456 Muslims, in 106 inhabited houses. In the
1945 statistics the population of Bir Nebala consisted of 590 Muslims and the land area was 2,692
dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 962 dunams were designated for plantations and irrigable land, 783 for cereals, while 21 dunams were built-up (urban) areas.
Jordanian era In the wake of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the
1949 Armistice Agreements, Bir Nabala came under
Jordanian rule. It was
annexed by Jordan in 1950. In 1961, the population of Bir Nabala was 850.
Post-1967 Since the
Six-Day War in 1967, Bir Nabala has been under
Israeli occupation. The population in the 1967 census conducted by the Israeli authorities was 935, 19 of whom originated from Israeli territory. After the
1995 accords, 14.4% of Bir Nabala’s land was classified as
Area B, while the remaining 85.6% was classified as
Area C. Israel has confiscated 675 dunums from Bir Nabala in order to construct
Atarot Industrial zone, in addition to isolating 1,121 dunams of Bir Nabala land behind the
West Bank barrier. ==References==