Al-Bira, Baysan
| al-Bira | |
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 al-Bira
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| Arabic | البيرة |
| Name meaning | the fortress |
| Subdistrict | Baysan |
| Coordinates | 32°36′29″N 35°30′14″E / 32.60806°N 35.50389°ECoordinates: 32°36′29″N 35°30′14″E / 32.60806°N 35.50389°E |
| Palestine grid | 197/223 |
| Population | 260 (1945) |
| Area | 6,866 dunams |
| Date of depopulation | 16 May 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Influence of nearby town's fall |
Al-Bira (Arabic: البيرة), is a depopulated former Palestinian village located 7.5 km north of Baysan. During Operation Gideon, the village was occupied by the Golani Brigade.
It has been suggested that the village was the site mentioned in the records of Tutmose III´s military campaign in Israel/Judea in 1468 BC.
In 1596, al-Bira was a village in the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Shafa under the liwa' (district) of Lajjun, with a population of 297. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, and olives, as well as on goats and beehives.
Al-Bira appeared as a village in a map published in 1850, but was found uninhabited later in the 19th century. Guérin reported that "The ruins are those of a large Arab village, whose houses were built for the most part of basaltic stones. It replaced an ancient township, to which belongs an edifice now completely destroyed, of which there yet remain several basaltic columns and a mutilated capital."
In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted in Mandatory Palestine authorities, Al-Bira had a population of 200 Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 220, still all Muslims, in 53 houses.
In 1945, the population consisted of 260 Muslims, with a total of 6,866 dunams of land. Of this, 48 dunams were for plantations or irrigable land, 4,667 for cereals, while 53 were built-up (urban) land.
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