Idna or Idhna () is a Palestinian town in the southern West Bank, located in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine, 13 kilometers west of Hebron and about one kilometer east of the Green Line. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 26,009 inhabitants in 2017.
Idna is physically divided into southern and northern parts by the Wadi al-Feranj.Robinson and Smith, 1856, pp. 69-70 Idna's primary source of income is agriculture and the town's total land area is 21,526 dunams (), of which 2,809 dunams () are built up area.Demolitions, threats of demolitions and evictions in Idhna town - Hebron Governorate Land Research Center. 24 February 2007 Idna is governed by a municipal council of thirteen members and six departments.Municipality of Idna Idna Municipality.
History Idna's site was inhabited since Canaanite times (the Bronze Age), evident from ancient remains found in the town. The town has been suggested being identified with the biblical city of Dannah, mentioned in the Book of Joshua (15:49) as a town of Judah.Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP III, p. 305Bromiley, 1979, pp. 319, 866
Hebrews, Romans, Byzantines and Arabs succeeded in gaining control of the town and coins, statues, tombs and pottery dating from these various rulers were found in the town.History of Idna Idna Municipality.
Roman period Writing in the early 4th century, Eusebius mentioned a village named Iedna as being six miles from Eleutheropolis on the road to Hebron.
In 2018, a set of Roman-era tombs from the first century CE, when the region was part of Roman-controlled Judaea, was found in Idna.
Mamluk period Palestine became part of the Mamluk empire in 1260. In February 1262, the Mamluk sultan Baybars endowed Idna, then an inhabited village, to the Ibrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs) in Hebron. A document related to this waqf, dated to the first decade of the 14th century, mentions a blood money settlement, overseen by the qadi of Hebron, by two brothers from the Halaf (or Jalaf) clan of Idna to three brothers of the Banu Rabi'a clan of Dura. The Idna brothers had been accused of killing a fourth brother of the Dura men.
Ottoman period Idna was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine. An Ottoman fiscal source from mentions Idna among the villages whose residents had scattered. By 1596 the village appeared in the tax registers as being in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Hebron in the liwa of Jerusalem. It had a population of 68 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olives, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and/or beehives; a total of 19,000 akçe. All of the revenue went to a waqf.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 124.
Edward Robinson, who visited Idna in 1838, recorded that the town's two parts were led by a sheikh and the inhabitants of each part followed and backed their respective sheikh in internal quarrels. Adjacent to Idna are the ruins of the original village which is totally covered by cultivable fields. Tesserae (mosaic stones) were found on the site.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 2, p. 425 Idna was further noted as a Muslim village located between the mountains and the plain of Gaza, but subject to the government of el-Khuhlil.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 117
According to historian Roy Marom,By the second half of the nineteenth century, in tandem with the Ottoman Land code reforms which allocated abandoned lands to inhabited villages, Idhna absorbed Bayt 'Alām, Bayt al-Bān, Tayyibat al-Ism, Umm al-Jamājim and other sites, covering 34 km2 of land. Idhna's residents held possession of the miri (state owned) lands [...] in common [...]. Cultivation of each plot was rotated between Idhna's six main clans on a bi-annual basis. Because of the distance of the lands from Idhna, residents established seasonal quarters among Idhna's khirab (ruined/temporary sites). [....] Negev nomads from the Jubārāt, Ramādīn, and Wuhaydī tribes also frequented the area in times of drought. Victor Guérin visited Idna in June 1863 and described a village with almost 500 inhabitants, divided into two districts, each ruled by a sheikh. Many houses, especially a small Bordj, had substructures of stone, which, to all appearances, were dating back to antiquity.Guérin, 1869, pp. 364-5 An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that Idna had 22 houses and a population of 108, though the population count included only men.Socin, 1879, p. 155Hartmann, 1883, p. 142, noted 60 houses In 1883 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Idna as "a small village on the south slope of a hill [ ] divided by a small depression into two."Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 305 The SWP further found that near the town were several large caves with niches for lamps or skulls.Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 330
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Idna had a population of 1,300, all Muslim,Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Hebron, p. 10 increasing in the 1931 census to 1,719, still all Muslim, in 317 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 32. Idhna’s inscreasing population reflects the demographic transition resulting from improved health care and food security.
In the 1945 statistics the population of Idna was 2,190, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 23 who owned 34,002 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 50 528 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 14,481 for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 93 while 153 dunams were built-up (urban) land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 143
Jordanian era In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Idna came under Jordanian rule.
The Jordanian census of 1961 recorded 3,568 inhabitants in Idna.Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 13
1967, aftermath Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Idna has been under Israeli occupation. The population in the 1967 census conducted by the Israeli authorities was 3,713.
Since 1995, Idna has been governed by the Palestinian National Authority as part of Area B of the West Bank. Today, the population is wholly Muslim.
References
Bibliography
External links
Welcome To Idna Idna, Welcome to Palestine Survey of Western Palestine, Map 21: IAA, Wikimedia commons
Idna Town (Fact Sheet), Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem (ARIJ) Idna Town Profile, ARIJ Idna aerial photo, ARIJ The priorities and needs for development in Idna town based on the community and local authorities’ assessment, ARIJ Idhna, Idna