PLace

Ra'na

Place
Ra'na — رَعْنا
District
Jerusalem
Subdistrict
Hebron
Average Elevation
200 m
Distance from Hebron
26 km
Population
Year Arab Total
1931 150 150
1944/45 190 190
Land Ownership (1944/45) in dunums
Year Arab Public Total
1944/45 6923 2 6925
Land Use (1944/45) in dunums
Use Arab Public Total
Non-Cultivable & Built-up (Total)
Use Arab Public Total
Built-up 12 12
Non-Cultivable 915 2 917
929 2 931 (13%)
Cultivable (Total)
Use Arab Total
Plantation and Irrigable 112 112
Cereal 5882 5882
5994 5994 (87%)
Number of Houses (1931)
36

The village stood on the eastern slopes of the western foothills of the Hebron Mountains. A secondary road passed through the village, linking it to Kudna and Bayt Jibrin to the south. To the northwest this road led to the villages of Dayr al-Dubban and 'Ajjur, ultimately connecting with the Jerusalem-Jaffa highway. Edward Robinson, an American biblical scholar who passed by in 1838, mentioned that the fields of Ra'na were planted in tobacco and cotton. In the late nineteenth century, the village of Ra'na was built of stone and mud, and had a pool and gardens. The population was Muslim; their houses were made of stone and roofed with wood and mud. Ra'na was classified as a hamlet by the Palestine Index Gazetteer. Grain was the predominant crop but the villagers also cultivated grapes, carob, and olives in the final years of the Mandate. In 1944/45 a total of 5,882 dunums was planted in cereals; 112 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.

The Israeli army's Giv'ati Brigade stormed a number of villages in the Hebron sub-disctrict as other forces implemented Operation Yoav further to the south. Ra'na fell into Israeli hands on 22-23 October. Many of its residents, as well as those of other villages in the hills around Hebron, fled before the arrival of Israeli troops those remaining were expelled towards Hebron.

The settlement of Gal-On was established in 1946 on what were traditionally village lands.

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.

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