Ra'na was a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 located approximately 26 km northwest of Hebron

Hebron

Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...

. It was occupied by Israeli occupying forces during Operation Yo'av in October 1948. It was one of 16 villages in the Hebron district that were depopulated.

History

During the rule of the Ottoman empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, Edward Robinson

Edward Robinson (scholar)

Edward Robinson was an American biblical scholar, known as the “Father of Biblical Geography.” He has been referred to as the “founder of modern Palestinology.” -Biography:...

  passed by in 1838, and reported that the fields of Ra'na were planted with tobacco and cotton.

In the late nineteenth century, Ra'na was described as a village built of stone and mud, and it had a pool and gardens.

Ra'na was classified as hamlet

Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

  by the Palestine Index Gazetteer. In 1944/45 a total of 5,882 dunum

Dunum

Dunum is a municipality in the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany....

s of land was planted with cereal

Cereal

Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...

s, while 112 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. Grain was the dominant crop, but during the final year of the British Mandate of Palestine, the villagers also grew grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

s, carob and olives.

1948, and after

The settlement of Gal On

Gal On

Gal On is a kibbutz in Israel's southern lowlands associated with the Hashomer Hatzair movement and its Kibbutz Artzi settlement organisation . Established as part of the 1946 11 points in the Negev settlement drive, it is located approximately ten kilometers north east of Kiryat Gat and two...

 was established in 1946 on what were traditionally village land.

The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi

Walid Khalidi

Walid Khalidi is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is General Secretary and co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an independent research and publishing center...

 describes that the site of the village in 1992: "The site is fenced in with barbed wire and is overgrown in part by cactuses, especially where there is limestone soil, and by carob trees. No houses or rubble remains."

External links

• Welcome to Ra'na
• Rana from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
  Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
  Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center is an organization established in 1996. It is located at 4 Raja Street, Ramallah in the West Bank. The traditional manor that houses the centre was the former family home of Khalil Salem Salah, the mayor of Ramallah between 1947/1951, is now owned by the Palestinian...