Bat Ayin

Khirbet Safa (Arabic: خربة صافا) is a Palestinian village located twelve kilometers north-west of Hebron.The village is in the Hebron Governorate Southern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the village had a population of 1,105 in mid-year 2006.

Kfar Etzion (Hebrew: כְּפַר עֶצְיוֹן, lit. Etzion Village) is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, organized as a religious kibbutz located in the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Hebron in the southern West Bank, established in 1927, depopulated in 1948 and re-established in 1967. It is located 4.7 km east of the Green Line and falls under the jurisdiction of Gush Etzion Regional Council. In 2021, Kfar Etzion had a population of 1,278. The majority of the international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.

The Kfar Etzion massacre refers to a massacre of Jews that took place after a two-day battle in which Jewish Kibbutz residents and Haganah militia defended Kfar Etzion from a combined force of the Arab Legion and local Arab men on May 13, 1948, the day before the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Of the 127 Haganah fighters and Jewish kibbutzniks who died during the defence of the settlement, Martin Gilbert states that fifteen were killed on surrendering.Controversy surrounds the responsibility and role of the Arab Legion in the killing of those who surrendered. The official Israeli version maintains that the kibbutz residents and Haganah soldiers were massacred by local Arabs and the Arab Legion of the Jordanian Army as they were surrendering. The Arab Legion version maintains that the Legion arrived too late to prevent the kibbutz attack by men from nearby Arab villages, which was allegedly motivated by a desire to avenge the massacre of Deir Yassin and the destruction of one of their villages several months earlier. The surrendering Jewish residents and fighters are said to have been assembled in a courtyard, only to be suddenly fired upon; it is said that many died on the spot, while most of those who managed to flee were hunted down and killed.Four prisoners survived the massacre and were transferred to Transjordan. Immediately following the surrender on May 13, the kibbutz was looted and razed to the ground. The members of the three other kibbutzim of the Gush Etzion surrendered the next day and were taken as POWs to Jordan. The bodies of the victims were left unburied until, one and a half years later, the Jordanian government allowed Shlomo Goren to collect the remains, which were then interred at Mount Herzl. The survivors of the Etzion Bloc were housed in former Arab houses in Jaffa.

The Gush Etzion Regional Council (Hebrew: מועצה אזורית גוש עציון, Mo'atza Azorit Gush Etzion) is a regional council in the northern Judean Hills, the northern part of the southern area of the West Bank, administering the settlements in the Gush Etzion region, as well as others nearby. The headquarters are located adjacent to Alon Shvut. The current mayor of the Council is Shlomo Ne'eman, elected on 14 February 2017. In August 2021, Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon was elected Chief Rabbi of the Gush Etzion Regional Council.

Khirbet Jamjum is an archeological site located at the western part of Gush Etzion, in the West Bank. It is situated on top of a high hill with cliff walls surrounding on three of its sides. The site was surveyed in the 1990s and excavated in 2005 and 2008.

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. 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. As of 2011, Gush Etzion consisted of 22 settlements with a population of 70,000.The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli and US governments dispute this.

The 2014 Gush Etzion kidnapping and murder refers to the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank during June 2014. The victims, Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer, and Naftali Fraenkel, were Israeli students aged 16 and 19. On the evening of 12 June 2014, the three teenagers were hitchhiking in the Alon Shvut settlement in Gush Etzion, in the West Bank when they were abducted. The Israel Defense Forces immediately initiated Operation Brother's Keeper (Hebrew: מבצע שובו אחים, romanized: Mivtza Shuvu Ahim) in search of the three teenagers. On 30 June, their bodies were found in a shallow grave near the town of Halhul. Israeli authorities accused two members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha, of carrying out the abduction and murder. As part of the operation, Israel arrested around 350 Palestinians, including nearly all of Hamas' West Bank leaders. The suspects were killed during a standoff with Israeli security forces on 23 September 2014, leading to the end of the operation. The incident gained significant international attention and escalated tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, leading to an increase in violence and retaliatory actions and eventually triggering the 2014 Gaza War.

Herzog College (Hebrew: מכללת הרצוג, Mikhlelet Herzog) is an Israeli teachers' college with campuses in Jerusalem, Alon Shvut and Migdal Oz.

Yeshivat Har Etzion (YHE; Hebrew: ישיבת הר עציון), commonly known in English as "Gush" and in Hebrew as "Yeshivat HaGush", is a hesder yeshiva located in Alon Shvut, an Israeli settlement in Gush Etzion. It is considered one of the leading institutions of advanced Torah study in the world and with a student body of roughly 480, it is one of the largest hesder yeshivot in the West Bank.

Yeshivat Makor Chaim was established in 1985 under the visionary leadership of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (Even Israel). Today, the Makor Chaim Educational Institution operates a high school located in the Gush Etzion area, south of Jerusalem. It has been recognized by the Ministry of Education as an Experimental School and a Teacher Training Institution as well. The senior Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Dov Singer is ably assisted by Rabbi David Rabinowitz. In addition to the high school which serves close to 300 students annually, Makor Chaim also operates the "Beit Midrash L'Hitchadshut" (the Renewal Outreach Center), a nationwide outreach study andprayer program for personal spiritual development as well as several training and development programs for educators, administrators and others committed to focusing on the student rather than on subject material.

Gevaot (Hebrew: גְּבָעוֹת) is an Israeli outpost located in the West Bank, in the westernmost area of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. It is named for the hills (gevaot in Hebrew) from which Balaam spoke, according to Numbers 23:9, just like the neighbouring settlement Rosh Tzurim. On 31 August 2014, Israel declared 988 acres of land surrounding Gevaot as part of state land in West Bank. Gevaot had yet to be recognized by the Israeli government, due to the lack of defined boundaries, this land appropriation is the first required step to officially recognizing Gevaot.As of August 2014, there were 10 families living in Gevaot. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, whereas Israeli outposts, like Gevaot, are considered illegal not only under international law but also under Israeli law.

Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah (variants: Beit Iskâria, Khirbet Zakariah, Beit Skâria) is a small Palestinian village southwest of Bethlehem in the West Bank, perched on a hill that rises about 995 metres (3,264 ft) above sea level. Administratively, it is associated with the village of Artas under the Bethlehem Governorate. It is also located in between the Israeli settlements of Alon Shevut and Rosh Tzurim, both of which were built on land confiscated from the village.