Kafr Qud (, also spelled Kafr Qad) is a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

village in the

Jenin Governorate The Jenin Governorate () is one of 16 Governorates of Palestine. It covers the northern extremity of the West Bank, including the area around the city of Jenin, which is the district capital or ''muhfaza'' of the district. According to the Pale ...

in the northern

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, located west of

Jenin Jenin ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and is the capital of the Jenin Governorate. It is a hub for the surrounding towns. Jenin came under Israeli occupied territories, Israeli occupation in 1967, and was put under the administra ...

. According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ) is the official statistical institution of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures at the national and international levels. It is a state institution that provid ...

(PCBS) census, it had a population of 1,143 in 2007 and 1,553 in 2017.2007 PCBS Census
.

. p. 105.

History

The village is situated on an ancient site, with

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

s cut out of rock, and old stones reused in housing.Dauphin, 1998, p. 751 Pottery

sherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

s from the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

,Zertal, 2004, p.
100
/ref>

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

, early and late

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

, early

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

and Medieval eras have been found here.

Ottoman era

Kafr Qud, like the rest of

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

, was incorporated into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in 1517, and in the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 1596, the village appeared as "Kafr Qud" in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'' of Jabal Sami in the '' liwa'' of

Nablus Nablus ( ; , ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 156,906. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a ...

. It had a population of 19 households and 5 bachelors, all

. The villagers paid a fixed tax-tare of 33.3% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 2,567

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

. Edward Robinson identified Kafr Qud with "Caparcotia" when he passed by in June 1838, part of the ''esh–Sha'rawiyeh esh–Shurkiyeh'' District. On 14 June 1870

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...

noted that Kafr Qud was "hidden in the mountains with groves of olives and fig trees ... and very probably the place is Caparcotani of

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

and the

Peutinger map ' (Latin for 'The Peutinger Map'), also known as Peutinger's Tabula, Peutinger tables James Strong and John McClintock (1880)"Eleutheropolis" In: ''The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature''. NY: Haper and Brothers ...

." He estimated the population to be 300. In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the ''

'' (sub-district) of al-Sha'rawiyya al-Sharqiyya. In 1882 the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described Kafr Qud as a "good-sized village in a recess among the hills.”

British Mandate era

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...

, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Kufr Qud had a population of 161; 153 Muslims and 8 Christians,Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Jenin, p
30
/ref> where the Christians were all Orthodox.Barron, 1923, Table XV, p
47
/ref> This was almost unchanged in the 1931 census, when Kafr Qud had 41 occupied houses and a population of 162; 9 Christians and the rest Muslim.Mills, 1932, p
70
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, the population was 250; 240 Muslims and 10 Christians,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
16
with 5463

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s of land, according to an official land and population survey. 908 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 2,170 dunams for cereals, while 14 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

, and after the

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

ian rule. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950. In 1961, the population was 362 persons.

Post-1967

Since the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

in 1967, Kafr Qud has been under

Israeli occupation Israel has occupied the Golan Heights of Syria and the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967. It has previously occupied the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and southern Lebanon as well. Prior to 1967, control of the Palestinian terr ...

. The population ''Kafar Qud'' in the 1967 census conducted by Israel was 374, of whom 110 originated from the Israeli territory. On 6 August 2024, three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during a raid in the village.

Geography

Kafr Qud is situated in the northern

Sahl Arraba Dothan Valley or Sahl Arraba ( ''Emek Dotan''; ''Sahl ʻArrābah'', Arraba plain) is a fertile tectonic valley in the northern West Bank. The region is about eleven kilometers long and four kilometers wide. There are several Palestinian territorie ...

on narrow ravine below the Jabal Shibli mountain to the north. It has an average elevation of 330 meters above sea level. The Bir al-Balad (also known as "Bir Kafr Qud") spring inside the village serves as the closest source of water. It is located south of the road connecting al-Hashimiya with Jenin,Zertal, 2004, p.
99
/ref> and nearby localities include the former to the northwest,

Kufeirit Kufeirit () is a Palestinian village in the West Bank, located 16 km west of the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 2,446 inhabitants in mid-yea ...

to the southwest, al-Manshiyya to the south and Burqin to the east. The ancient site in the middle of Kafr Qud is small and surrounded by a

gully A gully is a landform A landform is a land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. They may be natural or may be anthropogenic (caused or influenced by human activity). Landforms together make up a given ter ...

near the Bir al-Balad spring. Most of the modern housing was built east of the site, although ancient building material is highly present in some walls. In 1979 the built-up area of the village amounted to roughly 15

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Welcome To Kafr Qud
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8:
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Authority control Jenin Governorate Villages in the West Bank Municipalities of Palestine