Qatra () was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict, located southwest of the city of Ramla and west of Jerusalem, some above sea level. It was depopulated in May 1948. History Qatra was a Canaanite center of political and economic authority that along with 30 other urban sites in regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea, entered a period of decline in the Late Bronze Age between 1250 and 1150 BCE. Qatra is also tentatively identified with the Hellenistic city of Kidron (Cidron, Gedrus) mentioned in the first Book of the Maccabees (15:39, 41; 16:9), and it has been postulated that its name derives from the Hebrew name for Kidron, Qiṭrôn. Others have suggested that Qatra (Katra) is merely a corruption of the biblical Gederoth mentioned in , hence the use of the name in the Gederot Regional Council. Qatra has been named as the place of origin of a holy man named Sheikh Ahmad al-Qatrawani, who set out from the village due to his inability to fulfill his religious duties there, and settled by 'Atara, where his Mamluk shrine still stands. Ottoman era In 1596, Qatra was part of the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Gaza under the liwa' (district) of Gaza with a population of 46 families and 15 bachelors, an estimated 336 person, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, sesame, and fruit, as well as goats and beehives; a total of 11,340 akçe. 1/6 of the revenue went to a waqf. In 1838, Kutrah was noted as a Muslim village in the Gaza district. In 1863, Victor Guérin noted the village to have 600 inhabitants, and with houses of adobe. He further noted a noria by the well, which he assumed to be ancient. By the well were also six sections of barrels of columns of gray marble, the diameter of which was thirty centimetres. The villagers told Guérin they had "always" been there. Hedges of cacti surrounded the village and served as fences for figs and olive trees. There were also several "magnificent" acacias and mimosas there. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that Katra had a population of 353, in 161 houses, though the population count included men only. It was also noted that it was located south east of Yibna. In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village