After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the village of Barta'a was divided by the 1949 armistice into eastern and western parts. The western part fell under Israeli control, while the eastern part fell under Jordanian control. From 1949 to 1967, travel between the two halves was practically impossible. In the armistice agreements at the end of the War of Independence, the village was divided into two, on the basis of the Wadi al-Umiya outline, which crosses the village and constitutes a convenient natural border. Its north-western part was transferred to Israel with about a third of the population (500 people), while its eastern-southern part, which is located on the hilltop, was incorporated into Jordan with about 1,000 residents. The distance between the houses of Barta'a in Israel and the houses of Barta'a in Jordan was a few dozen meters and in some places only a few meters. In the first years after the 1948 War the villagers moved almost freely between the two parts of the village. The residents of Barta'a used to go to the mosque in the Jordanian section, and the mukhtar was in charge of the two parts of the village. As a result, the village was a convenient place for meetings between Israeli Arabs and their relatives who lived in the Jordan. In May 1955, the Jordanian authorities evacuated the refugees who settled in East Barta'a from the area, in order to make it difficult to smuggle into Israel. In March 1956, a serious border incident occurred in which an Israeli policeman and four Arabs from Jordan were killed. During the incident, most residents of East Barta'a fled their homes.