It was situated close to the Lebanese border, 19 kilometers (12 mi) north of the district capital, Acre, and 65 meters (213 ft) above sea level.

[11] Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani (d. 1201), a chronicler and advisor to Saladin, referred to the village as Ayn al-Bassa,[12] 'Ayn meaning 'spring' in Arabic.

[11] Although pottery sherds found by archaeologists indicate continuous habitation throughout the Middle Ages, no Crusader-period architectural remains were discovered yet as of 1997.

as a Crusader encampment during a military campaign,[15] and a document dated October 1200 recorded the sale of the village by King Amalric II of Jerusalem to the Teutonic Order.

It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat olives, barley, cotton and fruits, as well as on goats, beehives and pasture land; a total of 7,000 Akçe.

A large matting of flattened rush generally covers one half, and a few cushions are spread in the corner, near the unglazed window.

]In the late 19th century, the village of Al-Bassa was described as being built of stone, situated on the edge of a plain, surrounded by large groves of olives and gardens of pomegranate, figs and apples.

[citation needed] Important public structures at the time of its existence included two mosques, two churches, three schools and 18 other shrines both holy to Muslims and Christians.

The massacre was committed as a part of British efforts to suppress the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine, and was conducted by a company of the Royal Ulster Rifles (RUR) and a detachment of the 11th Hussars.

[33] The village of al-Bassa was targeted as a punitive reprisal operation after four Royal Ulster Rifles soldiers were killed and two seriously wounded by a landmine on September 6th.

As conflict escalated this official reprisals policy saw houses blown up, or groups of houses demolished, property looted, food stores systematically destroyed, forced labour, ‘punitive village occupations’, the imposition of crushing collective fines and wholesale destruction of ‘bad villages’.

[35] Al-Bassa was one of the largest, most developed villages in the north of the country, covering a land area of some 20,000 dunams of hills and plains, 2,000 of which were irrigated.

The active village council had paved roads, installed a system of running water, and oversaw the convening of a wholesale produce market there every Sunday.

[36] Al-Bassa's residents were expelled as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, and the village was completely destroyed by the Israelis with the exception of a few houses, a church, and a Muslim shrine.

[42] Altogether 81 residents of al-Bassa became Israeli citizens as internally displaced Palestinians who lost their land rights and ended up in places like Nazareth.

"[44] Most of the former villagers of al-Bassa (circa 95%) were pushed north towards Lebanon, concentrating in the Dbayeh refugee camp near Jounieh east of Beirut.

[26] Prior to and during the Lebanese Civil War, this camp suffered severe damage in the fighting and was largely destroyed, though it still has a population of some 4,233 people who are mostly Palestinian Christian refugees.

[26] Other former residents of Al-Bassa and the refugee camp in Lebanon ended up in Lansing, Michigan where they established an international village club and hold annual gatherings attended by over 300 people.

[45] The village was inspected in 1992, when it was found that although most of the houses of Al-Bassa had been destroyed, a number of historic buildings survived, including two churches, a mosque, and a maqam.

[The women´s] dress was unlike any costume we had yet seen; consisting of rather tight blue cotton trousers tied at the ankle, slippers without stockings, a chemise of cotton, blue or white, rather open in front, and over this a long dress, like a cassock, open in front, with a girdle and short sleeves.

This robe was plain, patched, or embroidered in the most fantastic and grotesque shapes, the triumph of El Bussah milliners being evidently to bring together in contrast as many colours as possible.

But outside of these pads is attached a string of silver, not lengthwise, but solidly piled one on another, and hammered severally into a saucer-shape, with a hole drilled through the middle.

They usually commence with some half-dozen Spanish dollars at the chin, gradually tapering up to small Turkish silver-pieces of the size of sixpences at the forehead.

The weight is no trifle, and one little girl, whose head-gear was handed to me for examination in return for a present of needles, had £30 worth of silver round her cheeks.

An instance in which a Greek priest had insisted on the payment of his fees out of the head-dress of a widow has been recited to me as a case of grievous extortion.Weir, after quoting what Tristram wrote about the head-dresses in Al-Bussah, notes that coin headdresses went out of use for daily wear in Galilee at the beginning of the 20th century, but continued to be worn by brides for their weddings.