Baqa al-Gharbiyye 5.56

Baqa al-Gharbiyye is a predominantly Arab city in the Haifa District of Israel, located near the Green Line. In 2003, Baqa al-Gharbiyye united with the Jatt local council to form Baqa-Jatt, a unification that was dissolved a few years later. The city had a population of in.HistoryRoman, Byzantine and Umayyad erasAn olive press, quarries and a winepress seeming to date to the Hellenistic or Early Roman period has been found. Ceramic objects from the late Roman or early Byzantine periods have also been found, and a burial cave, with remains dating to Byzantine and the beginning of the Umayyad periods (sixth–seventh centuries CE).Middle AgesThe earliest documentation regarding Baqa is from the 12th century. In 1265 Baibars divided the village of Baqa between Alam al-Din al-Zahiry and Aladdin al-Tankazy when the villages of Palestine were divided and given to the local fighters who fought against the Crusaders and the Byzantines.Ottoman eraBaqa was mentioned in an Ottoman document in 1538, as a five-family small village with 11 non-married people. In 1596, Baqa al-Gharbiyye appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jabal Shami of the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 5 Muslim households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summercrops, goats or beehives, and a press for olives or grapes.