Gush Etzion

This article is about the evolution of the historical Etzion Bloc of settlement. For the modern regional council, see Gush Etzion Regional Council.

Gush Etzion in the 2018 OCHA OpT map, showing both the modern definition and the area of the original 1943-48 settlements
Beitar Illit, the largest city in Gush Etzion, was founded in 1985

Gush Etzion (Hebrew: גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן, lit. Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural villages that were founded in 1943–1947, and destroyed by the Arab Legion before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, in the Kfar Etzion massacre.[1] The area was left outside of Israel with the 1949 armistice lines. These settlements were rebuilt after the 1967 Six-Day War, along with new communities that have expanded the area of the Etzion Bloc.[2] As of 2011, Gush Etzion consisted of 22 settlements with a population of 70,000.[3]

The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law,[4] but the Israeli[5] and US governments[6] dispute this.

  1. ^ Between Jerusalem and Hebron: Jewish Settlement in the Pre-State Period, Yossi Katz, Bar Ilan University Press, pp. 8, 265.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference agglomeration was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ West Bank settlers shrug off Obama call Archived 2015-07-05 at the Wayback Machine Khaleej Times
  4. ^ "The Geneva Convention". BBC News. 10 December 2009. Retrieved 27 November 2010.
  5. ^ embassies.gov.il https://embassies.gov.il/abuja/AboutIsrael/Pages/Israeli-Settlements-and-Law.aspx. Retrieved 2019-12-03. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ^ "Jewish settlements no longer illegal - US". 2019-11-18. Retrieved 2019-12-03.