Kudna

Place in Hebron, Mandatory Palestine

Kudna كُدنة Kidna
Etymology: Kudna (personal name)^[1]
1870s map 1940s map modern map 1940s with modern overlay map A series of historical maps of the area around Kudna (click the buttons)
31°38′42″N 34°53′40″E / 31.64500°N 34.89444°E / 31.64500; 34.89444
Palestine grid	140/117
Geopolitical entity	Mandatory Palestine
Subdistrict	Hebron
Date of depopulation	22-23 October 1948^[4]
Area ^[3]
• Total	15,744 dunams (15.744 km² or 6.079 sq mi)
Population (1945)
• Total	450^[2]^[3]
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current Localities	Beit Nir^[5] Britannia Park^[6]

Kudna (Arabic: كُدنة, also known to the Crusaders as Kidna) was a Palestinian Arab village, located 25 kilometers northwest of Hebron.

History

Kudna was known to the Crusaders as Kidna. An archaeological site in Kudna contained remnants of a fort, the foundations of buildings, previously inhabited caves, and cisterns. About half a dozen khirbas lay in the vicinity.^[5] The remains of a fortified building, possibly a hall-house, from the Crusader era is still standing.^[7]^[8]^[9]

Ottoman period

In 1838, during the rule of the Ottoman empire, Edward Robinson noted Kudna as a small Muslim village, located in the Gaza district. He also saw the remains of a large ancient building, the western wall was still standing, some 150 ft long (46 m), built of large stones.^[10]^[11]

In 1863 the French explorer Victor Guérin found Kudna to have five hundred inhabitants. It was located on a hill whose summit was rocky and whose sides were covered with olive and fig trees interspersed with tobacco. On the highest point of the hill were the remains of an old castle, along sixty paces on fifty seven wide. Guérin found the lower courses being ancient, possibly Byzantine; the upper layers more recent.^[12]

An Ottoman village list of about 1870 indicated 12 houses and a population of 40, though the population count included men only.^[13]^[14] In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Kudna as a small village situated on a low hill and surrounded by olive trees. The walls of a Crusader Castle rose from the middle of the village.^[15]

In 1896 the population of Kidna was estimated to be about 228 persons.^[16]

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Kudna had an entirely Muslim population of 281,^[17] increasing in the 1931 census to 353 inhabitants.^[18]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Kudna was 450, all Muslims,^[2] who owned 15,744 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.^[3] 825 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 6,505 for cereals,^[19] while 15 dunams were built-up (urban) land.^[20]

1948, and aftermath

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Israeli forces of the Giv'ati Brigade, commanded by Yigal Allon in Operation Yo'av assaulted the village on 22 October 1948.^[21] Though the village was defended by volunteers from the Arab Liberation Army, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and local militia men, it was overtaken by the Israeli forces and the village inhabitants fled.^[21] Benny Morris reports that Kudna was one of a number of villages, including Zikrin, Ra'na, Deir ad Dabbun and Ajjur, where most of the people fled before the arrival of the Givati Brigade; however those that did remain were expelled eastwards.^[22]

Following the war the area was incorporated into the State of Israel and kibbutz Beit Nir was established in 1955 to the west of the village site, on what had been village land.^[5]

The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi described the village remaining structures in 1992: "The houses have been reduced to levelled debris hidden beneath an overgrowth of wild vegetation. One can see the stones that served as fences for home gardens. Cactuses and carob, fig, and olive trees grow on the site."^[5]

References

^ Palmer, 1881, p. 376
^ ^a ^b Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 23
^ ^a ^b ^c Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 50
^ Morris, 2004, p. xix, village #321. Also gives cause of depopulation
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Khalidi, 1992, p. 218
^ Dear Prince William, if you have to go, make it count, Robert Cohen, March 10, 2018, Mondoweiss
^ Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 288
^ Warren and Conder, 1884, p. 443
^ Pringle, 1997, p. 62
^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol. II, p. 354
^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 119
^ Guérin, 1869, pp. 367-368
^ Socin, 1879, p. 157
^ Hartmann, 1883, p. 143, also noted 12 houses
^ Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 258. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 218
^ Schick, 1896, p. 123
^ Barron, 1923, Table V, p. 10
^ Mills, 1932, p. 33
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 93
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 143
^ ^a ^b "Welcome to Kudna". Palestine Remembered. Retrieved 2007-12-04.
^ Morris, 2004, p. 466

Bibliography

Barron, J.B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1883). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 3. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
Guérin, V. (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 1: Judee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
Khalidi, W. (1992). All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
Hartmann, M. (1883). "Die Ortschaftenliste des Liwa Jerusalem in dem türkischen Staatskalender für Syrien auf das Jahr 1288 der Flucht (1871)". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 6: 102–149.
Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
Morris, B. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
Pringle, D. (1997). Secular buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: an archaeological Gazetter. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521-46010-7.
Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 2. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.
Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.
Schick, C. (1896). "Zur Einwohnerzahl des Bezirks Jerusalem". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 19: 120–127.
Socin, A. (1879). "Alphabetisches Verzeichniss von Ortschaften des Paschalik Jerusalem". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 2: 135–163.
Warren, C.; Conder, C.R. (1884). The Survey of Western Palestine: Jerusalem. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.