Beit Sira (Arabic: بيت سيرا) is a Palestinian village in the central West Bank, located 22 kilometers west of Ramallah and is a part of the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate. The village is situated along the Green Line. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, around 4,000 dunams of its land became a part of the "No-Man's Land" strip between the north-central West Bank and Israel. Currently Beit Sira's jurisdiction is 3,120 dunams, of which 441 dunams are built-up areas and the remainder is open spaces for future construction or agricultural land.[3]
Etymology
Bayt Sīrā /Bēt Sīra/ is an ancient toponymic survival, meaning House of Sira. The second part of the name may originate from the Biblicalfemalename Š’rh (< *ši’r-at).[4]
Clermont-Ganneau suggested that Beit Sira, along with its shrine Neby Sira, believed by locals to be a son of Jacob, corresponds to the biblical town "Uzzen Sheera," which according to the Books of Chronicles, was built by a daughter of Ephraim.[5] In the same biblical narrative, Sheera is also said to be the builder of Lower and Upper Bethoron,[6] today identified with the nearby towns of Beit 'Ur al-Tahta and Beit 'Ur al-Fauqa, respectively.[7]
In the 1596 tax records, Beit Sira was a part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla, part of Gaza Sanjak, in the Ottoman Empire, with a population of 17 Muslim household. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 4,500 akçe. All of the revenue went to a Waqf.[9]
In 1838, it was noted as a Muslim village in the Ibn Humar District, part of the er-Ramleh area.[10]
In 1863 Victor Guérin noted Beit Sira as a considerable village on the summit of a rocky hill. A saint, revered under the name of Neby Sira, had a sanctuary there with his tomb.[11]Socin, citing an official Ottoman village list compiled around 1870, noted that Bet Sira had 39 houses and a population of 125, though the population count included only men.[12]Hartmann found that Bet Sira had 29 houses.[13]
In 1873, Clermont-Ganneau was told that Beit Sira supposedly housed the tomb of Neby Sira, a son of Jacob and brother to Neby Ma'in (possibly Benjamin), the founder of Bir Ma'in.[14]
In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it: "A small village on a swell in the low hills. A main road passes through it. The water supply is artificial."[15]
In the 1945 statistics the population was 540, all Muslims,[18] while the total land area was 4,687 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[19] Of this, 205 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 1,924 for cereals,[20] while 23 dunams were classified as built-up (urban) areas.[21]
After the 1995 accords, 9.3% of Beit Sira land was classified as Area B, the remaining 90.7% as Area C.[23] In 2012, approximately 78% of the village population worked in the Israel labor market.[24] Israel has confiscated 1,499 dunams of land from Beit Sira for the construction of the Israeli settlement of Maccabim, presently part of Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut.[25]
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Beit Sira had a population of 2,840 inhabitants in 2006.[26] In the 2007 PCBS census, there were 2,749 people living in the town.[27] By 2017, the population was 3,343.[1]
