The Birya affair (Hebrew: העלייה לביריה‎‎, HaAliya LeBirya, lit. The Ascent to Birya) was an attempt by the British army to take over the Jewish settlement Birya, in Palestine in the time of the British Mandate. On March 5, 1946, British soldiers searched the new settlement of Birya, in the northern Galilee, near the city of Safed, and having found hidden weapons, arrested all 24 inhabitants, and declared the settlement an "Occupied military zone".