Barta'a

Barta'a (Arabic: برطعة‎, Hebrew: בַּרְטַּעָה) [meaning: "cutting") is a town in Israel and the Palestinian territories that straddles both sides of the Green Line and the Wadi Ara region.

Western Barta'a is in the Haifa District of Israel, and forms part of the Basma local council. Its 4,700 residents are Arab citizens of Israel.

Eastern Barta'a is in the Palestinian territories in the northern part of the Jenin Governorate of the West Bank in what was designated under the Oslo Accords Area C. It has 3,600 residents, of whom 30-40 percent carry Israeli identity cards and the rest of whom carry Palestinian identity cards.

History

In 1882, during Ottoman rule, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it as "a ruined Arabic village on a high hill, with a spring in the valley to the north 400 feet below."

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Barta'a had a population of 468, all Muslim, increasing in the 1931 census to 692, still all Muslims, in 94 houses.