In 1838 el-Bureij was noted as a Muslim village, located in
er-Ramleh district.[7]
In 1863
Victor Guérin noted it as a village of 200 inhabitants. The
Sheikh's house was described as "fairly large and fairly constructed"; the others, less so. Tobacco plantations were spread around. He also noted large ancient blocks, which, it was said, originated from Kh[irbet]
Tibneh, just to the north.[8]
Socin found from an official
Ottoman village list from about 1870 that buredsch had a population of 116 in a total of 41 houses, though that population count included men, only. It was further noted that it was located between
Mughallis and
Saydun.[6]Hartmann found that el-buredsch had 40 houses.[9]
In 1882, the
PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described El Bureij as: "A small village on high ground, having a high house or tower in the middle, from which it is named."[10]
In the
1945 statistics, the village had a population of 720; 10 Christians and 710 Muslims,[2] with a total of 19,080
dunums of land.[3] Of this, 31 dunams were for citrus and bananas, 77 were for irrigable land or plantations, 9,426 for
cereals,[13] while 14 dunams were built-up (urban) Arab land.[14]
Al-Burayj's had a mosque named al-'Umari Mosque, and it was also home to a Greek Orthodox monastery.[15]
1948, aftermath
During
Operation Ha-Har, between the 19 and 24 October 1948, the
Harel Brigade captured several villages, among them Bureij. The villagers fled, or were expelled eastwards.[16]
Following the war, the area was incorporated into the
State of Israel. In 1955 the moshav of
Sdot Micha was established on land that had belonged to al-Burayj, south of the village site.[5]
Al-Burayj 1945 1:250,000 (upper centre)
Al-Burayj 1947 1:20,000
Building in Al-Burayj after capture by Harel Brigade
Prisoners waiting to be interrogated, Al-Burayj, 1948
Al-Burayj 1948
Members of Harel Brigade in Al-Burayj 1948
Large part of the village land is now a military base called
Sdot Micha Airbase, which is inaccessible to the public.[5]
^
abcGovernment of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p.
56Archived 2008-08-05 at the
Library of Congress Web Archives
^Morris, 2004, p.
xix, village #272. Gives both cause and date of depopulation as "Not known"