in the 1945 statistics, al-birwa's population was 1,460, of which 130 were christians. prominent families and landowners in the village included the saad, darwish, abdullah, kayyal, sakkas, al-wakid, al-joudi, najm, al-dabdoub, khalid, akawi, hissian, hawash and al-sheikha families. socio-economic status in the village was largely determined by land ownership. about 140 residents of the village were tenant farmers who worked for the major landowning moughrabi, al-zayyat and adlabi families. according to intelligence gathered by the haganah (a jewish paramilitary organization in palestine), the traditional, local power brokers of the central galilee were residents of al-birwa, who "resolved all conflicts in the nearby villages". haganah intelligence also reported that al-birwa's inhabitants were "long-lived, the majority reaching an age of over 100 years".