Kfar Etzion massacre

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Alon Shvut (Hebrew: אַלּוֹן שְׁבוּת) is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, established in June 1970 over lands confiscated from the nearby Palestinian town of Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah. It is part of the Etzion bloc of the West Bank, administered by the Gush Etzion Regional Council, and neighbors the Jewish settlements of Kfar Etzion, Rosh Tzurim, Neve Daniel, Elazar, Bat Ayin, Migdal Oz, and Efrat. In 2021, its population was 3,061. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.

The Battle of 3 Shevat was a battle in the 1947–1949 Palestine war, fought on January 14, 1948 (Hebrew date: 3 Shevat). The battle began with a large attack on Gush Etzion by Arab groups in the area, reinforced by Arabs and Bedouins who came from as far as Jerusalem and Beer Sheva, under the command of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni. They attempted to capture the center of Gush Etzion, and to divide the four settlements of Gush Etzion into two separate enclaves. Their attack was repulsed, at the cost of heavy losses to the attackers.

Beracah is a valley mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). It was named the "Valley of Blessings ("blessing" is "Berakhah" in Hebrew) by Jehoshaphat, king of Judah after God’s victory over Moab and Ammon, as is recounted in the Second Book of Chronicles.The valley is on the main road from Hebron to Jerusalem. According to the Chronicler's account, Jehoshaphat gathered his people together and prayed to God for deliverance. God answered his prayer by stirring up the enemy to kill each other. By the time Jehoshaphat and his army entered the valley, the enemy had completely destroyed themselves. The army took three days to collect the valuables of their enemies including gold, silver, and precious jewels: hence the valley was called "The Valley of Blessing".

Bat Ayin (Hebrew: בַּת עַיִן, lit., "daughter of the eye" or "apple of the eye", i. e., pupil, Arabic: بات عاين) is an Israeli settlement in Gush Etzion in the West Bank, between Jerusalem and Hebron, founded in 1989 by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg, in lands that Israel confiscated from the neighbouring Palestinian villages of Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah and Jab'a. It is administered by the Gush Etzion Regional Council, with a population of less than 1,000, consisting mainly of "Ba'alei T'shuva" (back to the faith) Jews with Hasidic tendencies. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli disputes this.

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.