Hebron district · depopulated 1948 · 2 min read
Kudna
كُدْنا
Kudna was a village of 450 people built along the track from Bayt Jibrin to Dayr al-Dubban, with the walls of a Crusader castle rising in the middle of it. The Giv'ati Brigade took it on 22–23 October 1948 and, according to Morris, expelled everyone who had stayed.
See Kudna on the Atlas31.6450°N · 34.8944°EKudna lay on the lower slopes of the Hebron mountains, 250 metres up and about 25 kilometres from Hebron. A secondary road ran the four kilometres due south to Bayt Jibrin and on to Hebron, Bethlehem and al-Faluja; other roads and dirt paths connected it to the villages nearby. The Crusaders knew it as Kidna. In the late nineteenth century it was a small village on a low hill surrounded by olive trees, with the walls of a Crusader castle rising from the middle of it.
The people were Muslims and built along the track from Bayt Jibrin to Dayr al-Dubban, which ran through the village north to south and served as its main street; during the Mandate new houses went up northward along it. The 1931 census counted 353 people in 75 houses; the 1945 statistics counted 450, on 15,744 dunums of which 6,505 were under cereals and 825 irrigated or orchard. Drinking water came from a well on the eastern edge of the village. Most of the farmland lay to the west and was planted in grain, vegetables, figs and olives, all of it rainfed; the uncultivated ground with its scrub and wild grass was grazing for goats and sheep. An archaeological site in Kudna held the remnants of a fort, building foundations, inhabited caves and cisterns, and about half a dozen khirbas lay nearby.
Kudna was occupied in the same circumstances as ‘Ajjur, during Operation Yoav, by the Giv’ati Brigade. The sources agree that it fell on 22–23 October 1948; Zochrot gives 23 October. As in the other villages overrun in that operation, Benny Morris records that all the remaining residents of Kudna were expelled.
Beyt Nir was established west of the site on village land in 1955. An earlier settlement, Paggit, may have been built on village land in 1952 but appears not to have lasted. The houses have been reduced to levelled debris under wild growth. The stones that fenced the house gardens can still be seen. Cactus and carob, fig and olive grow on the site, cypress to the south of it. The whole area is fenced and used by Israeli farmers as pasture.
Sources
- Kudna — Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question (PalQuest)
- Kudna — Zochrot, drawn from Walid Khalidi, All That Remains (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992)
Cited works
2- palquest.org — kudna(opens in a new tab)https://www.palquest.org/en/place/17082/kudna
- zochrot.org — en(opens in a new tab)https://www.zochrot.org/villages/village_details/49231/en
Connected in the archive
10 connected records10 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
named in this record — 3 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Bayt Jibrinبيت جبرين
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: A secondary road ran the four kilometres due south to Bayt Jibrin and on to Hebron, Bethlehem and al-Faluja; other roads and dirt paths connected it to the villages nearby.
- Dayr al-Dubbanدَيْر الدُبّان
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The people were Muslims and built along the track from Bayt Jibrin to Dayr al-Dubban, which ran through the village north to south and served as its main street; during the Mandate new houses went up northward along it.
- Hebronالخليل
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Kudna lay on the lower slopes of the Hebron mountains, 250 metres up and about 25 kilometres from Hebron.
names this place — 1 record
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Zikrinذكرين
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Secondary roads tied it to Bayt Jibrin by way of Kudna, and through 'Ajjur to the highway running northeast to the Jerusalem–Jaffa road.
in the same district — 6 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- 'Ajjurعَجُّور
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Al-Dawayimaالدوايمة
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Al-Qubaybaالقُبَيْبَة
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Bayt Nattifبيت نتِّيف
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Dayr Nakhkhasدَيْر نَخّاس
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
- Tall al-Safiتلّ الصافي
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Both recorded in the Hebron district.
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“Kudna.” Village Memory, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/memory/kudna.- MLA
“Kudna.” Village Memory, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/memory/kudna. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-kudna, title = {Kudna}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/memory/kudna}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }