Is it older than Israel?

Balad al-Shaykh was a village on the slopes above Haifa, where the Syrian sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam is buried. On the night of 31 December 1947, after Arab workers at the Haifa oil refinery had killed 39 Jewish workers in retaliation for an Irgun bomb that had killed six Arabs at the refinery gate, the Haganah's Carmeli Brigade and a Palmach unit raided the village.

The order was to kill as many men as possible. The raiders went from house to house for about an hour. The Haganah's own count was 60 dead; the village's count was higher and included women and children. Balad al-Shaykh was emptied in April 1948. Nesher stands on it.