Kudna

The village was located on the lower slopes of the Hebron Mountains. A secondary road linked it to Bayt Jibrin (4 km due south) and hence to Hebron, Bethlehem, and al-Faluja similar roads and dirt paths connected it to the area's villages. Kudna was known to the Crusaders as Kidna. In the late nineteenth century, Kudna was 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. The people of Kudna were Muslims who built their houses along the track from Bayt Jibrin to Dayr al-Dubban, which ran through the village in a north-south direction and constituted its main street. During the Mandate new housing was constructed northward along this street.

The community obtained its drinking water from a well on the eastern edge of the village. Its agricultural land, the bulk of which was located on the west side, was planted in grain, vegetables, and fruits such as figs and olives. Agriculture was rainfed. In 1944/45 a total of 6,505 dunums was allocated to cereals 825 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. The uncultivated land in the vicinity, with its shrubs and wild grasses, served as grazing grounds for the goats and sheep that were raised by the villagers. 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.