Avshalom Cave

Dayr al-Hawa (Arabic: دير الهوا) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jerusalem Subdistrict. The village was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on October 19, 1948, by the Fourth Battalion of the Har'el Brigade of Operation ha-Har. It was located 18.5 km west of Jerusalem.

Mahseya (Hebrew: מַחְסֵיָה) is a moshav in central Israel. Located about 2 kilometers east of Beit Shemesh, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council in the Jerusalem District. In 2021 it had a population of 493.

Dayr Aban (also spelled Deir Aban; Arabic: دير آبان) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jerusalem Subdistrict, located on the lower slope of a high ridge that formed the western slope of a mountain, to the east of Beit Shemesh. It was formerly bordered by olive trees to the north, east, and west. The valley, Wadi en-Najil, ran north and south on the west-side of the village. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on October 19, 1948, during Operation Ha-Har. It was located 21 km west of Jerusalem. Today there are over 5000 people originally from Deir Aban living in Jordan.

Naham (Hebrew: נַחַם) is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Beit Shemesh, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council. In 2021 it had a population of 561.

The Judea and Samaria Area (Hebrew: אֵזוֹר יְהוּדָה וְשׁוֹמְרוֹן, romanized: Ezor Yehuda VeShomron; Arabic: يهودا والسامرة, romanized: Yahūda wa-s-Sāmara) is an administrative division of Israel. It encompasses the entire West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, but excludes East Jerusalem (see Jerusalem Law). Its area is split into 165 Palestinian "islands" that are under total or partial civil administration by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and a contiguous area containing 230 Israeli settlements into which Israeli law is "pipelined". While its area is internationally recognized as a part of the Palestinian territories, some Israeli authorities group it together with the districts of Israel proper, largely for statistical purposes. The term Judea and Samaria serves as another name for the West Bank in Israel.

The Jerusalem District (Hebrew: מחוז ירושלים; Arabic: منطقة القدس) is one of the six administrative districts of Israel. The district capital is Jerusalem. The Jerusalem District has a land area of 652 km2. The population of 1,159,900 is 66.3% Jewish and 32.1% Arab. A fifth (21%) of the Arabs in Israel live in the Jerusalem Municipality, which includes both East and West Jerusalem. Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem has not been recognized by the international community. The majority of Arabs in the Jerusalem District are Palestinians, eligible to apply for citizenship under Israeli law, but either declining to apply or unsuccessful. The minority are Arab citizens of Israel living in Abu Ghosh, Beit Safafa and East Jerusalem, where Arab professionals have settled since the late 1970s, mainly for the provision of legal and other services to the local population. The non-Jewish population is 95.2% Muslim, 3.5% Christian with the others unclassified by religion.

Artuf (Arabic: عرتوف) was a Palestinian village in the Jerusalem foothills depopulated in 1948. It was situated 21.5 kilometers (13.4 mi) west of Jerusalem on a high plateau, surrounded by plains on the south, east, and west. The village was on a secondary road that linked it to the main road to Jerusalem.

Hartuv (Hebrew: הרטוב) or Har-Tuv (lit. "Mount of Goodness") was an agricultural colony in the Judean Hills established in 1883 on land purchased from the Arab village of Artuf by English missionaries. It was destroyed in the 1929 Palestine riots but was rebuilt in 1930. In 1948 it was abandoned again. Hartuv was the starting point for the Convoy of 35 during the 1948 war. Hartuv is now an industrial zone near Beit Shemesh.

Scroll of Fire is a monument found in the Forest of the Martyrs, on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. It commemorates Jewish history from The Holocaust until the independence of the State of Israel in 1948. The monument was inaugurated in 1971. The initiative for the monument came from B'nai B'rith of the United States, and was funded by them. The site was chosen by Yosef Weitz, the director of the Land and Afforestation Department of the Jewish National Fund. The monument was sculpted by the artist Nathan Rapoport, who is a Holocaust survivor.The sculpture is made of bronze and is eight meters high. It is in the shape of two scrolls, a gesture to the Jewish nation being the "People of the Book". One of the scrolls describes the Holocaust and the other describes independence.In the scroll depicting the Holocaust, there are sculptured among others Janusz Korczak and his children, a row of helmets symbolizing the Nazi soldiers, a member of The Ghetto Fighters holding a grenade, and other characters behind fences of concentration camps. The scroll ends with Holocaust survivors immigrating to Israel in Aliyah Bet, Israelis helping them disembark from the boats, and a Jewish man kissing the Land of Israel. In the scroll depicting independence, there are sculptured symbols of Israel, such as: Olive trees, a child holding a cluster of grapes, a man blowing a shofar near the Western Wall, the menorah as seen on the Arch of Titus, an old character representing Elijah, people dancing Hora, and flags flying near an angel blowing a trumpet. In the space between the two scrolls, there are two rooms of memorial, and in each one is engraved a quote from the bible.

Naḥal Sorek (Hebrew: נחל שורק, lit. 'Brook of Sorek'; Arabic: وادي الصرار, romanized: Wadi al-Sirar), also Soreq, is one of the largest, most important drainage basins in the Judean Hills. It is mentioned in the Book of Judges 16:4 of the Bible as the border between the ancient Philistines and the Tribe of Dan of the ancient Israelites. It is known in Arabic as Wadi es-Sarār, sometimes spelled Surar, and by various names along different segments, such as Wadi Qalunya near Motza, Wadi al-Tahuna, and Nahr Rubin further downstream.

Jarash (Arabic: جرش) was a Palestinian village that was depopulated over the course of 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Located 25 kilometers west of Jerusalem, Jarash was a wholly Arab village of 220 inhabitants in 1948. The village was built of stone houses on the spur of a hill, 411 metres (1,348 ft) above sea-level, and lay about 1 km. eastward of the traffic circle opposite Moshav Zanoah, on regional road 3855 that bypasses Beit Shemesh to its east, and which road runs in a northerly-southerly direction along Wadi en Najil (now called Naḥal Zanoah). The immediate region to the west of the site of Jarash, upon two hills separated by a valley, grew orchards belonging to the village inhabitants consisting of carobs, figs, almonds and olives. Cave dwellings dot the landscape of this region.

The Jaffa–Jerusalem railway (also J & J) is a railway that connected Jaffa and Jerusalem. The line was built in the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem (Ottoman Syria) by the French company Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements and inaugurated in 1892. The project was headed by Joseph Navon, an Ottoman Jewish entrepreneur from Jerusalem, after previous attempts by the British-Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore failed. While the first rail track in the Middle East was laid elsewhere, the line is considered to be the first Middle Eastern railway.The railway was originally built in 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge, later rebuilt to 1,050 mm (3 ft 5+11⁄32 in) and then to 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge. The line was operated by the French, the Ottomans and after World War I, the British. After its closure in 1948, it was re-opened by Israel Railways in 1949 as the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem railway, although since 2019 this designation is instead used to refer to the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem railway – an electrified dual-track railway line constructed during the 21st century that employs extensive bridging and tunneling along a faster, more direct route between the two cities.