Bu'eine Nujeidat is an Arablocal council in the Northern District of Israel. Made up of two villages, Bu'eine and Nujeidat, they merged in 1987 and were recognized as one local council in 1996. In its population was, the majority of which is Muslim.
History
Bu'eine is a village located on an ancient site. A small jug from the Iron Age, and potsherds from the Roman and Byzantine periods have been found here. A possible Roman or Byzantine grave is also located here. Potsherds from the early Islamic and Mamluk period have also been found.
Ottoman era
In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman empire with the rest of Palestine, and in the 1596 tax-records it appeared as al-Bu'ayna, located in the Nahiya of Tabariyya, part of Safad Sanjak. The population was 38 households and 6 bachelors, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, fruit trees and cotton, in addition to occasional revenues, and goats and beehives; a total of 2420 akçe. A map from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 by Pierre Jacotin showed Bu'eine, named as Beni. In 1875, when Victor Guérin visited, the village had at most 150 inhabitants. Guérin further noted that "below the village, on the north-east side, a curious reservoir cut in the rock, with three troughs. Steps lead down into it. Within it is covered with a thick cement, and vaulted over with cut stones. The water formerly flowed into it through a conduit now choked. The mosque of the village is an ancient church, a new door having been made in the north side. The slopes of the hill were formerly covered with houses, built in terraces. Rude characters were found traced on the rocks about 600 paces to the east of the village." In 1881 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described El Baineh as, "a village built on the hillside, containing 200 Moslem inhabitants. It possesses a spring, and there are olive-groves in the plain to the north."
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Bu’aniyeh had a population of 212, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 349, of whom 2 were Jews and the rest Muslims, in a total of 67 occupied houses. In the 1945 statistics the population of Bu'eina was 540, all Muslims, while the total land area was 9,214 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 782 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 13,223 for cereals, while 30 dunams were classified as built-up areas. All the inhabitants were Muslim.
