Rosh Tzurim

The Battle of Beth Zechariah was a battle around May 162 BC during the Maccabean revolt fought between Jewish rebels under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus (Judah Maccabee) against an army of the Seleucid Empire, the Greek successor state (diadochi) to the Macedonian conquests that controlled Syria and Babylonia. The battle was fought at Beth Zechariah (modern Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah) and was a Seleucid victory, with the rebels driven from the field in retreat. Judas's brother Eleazar Avaran died in combat with a war elephant. The defeat allowed the Seleucids to continue their campaign and besiege the Jewish holy city of Jerusalem.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

Elazar (Hebrew: אֶלְעָזָר) is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, 18 kilometers south of Jerusalem in the Gush Etzion cluster of settlements. A community settlement, it had a population of 2,561 in 2021. It is administered by the Gush Etzion Regional Council. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, although the Israeli government disputes this.

On 21 March 2024, David Ben Avraham (Hebrew: דוד בן אברהם), a 63-year-old Palestinian Jewish convert, was shot and killed by an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldier near Elazar, an Israeli settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The soldier had approached Ben Avraham and asked whether he was Jewish, to which he responded affirmatively. In the ensuing encounter, the soldier pointed his rifle at Ben Avraham and threatened to kill him if he reached for his bag; Ben Avraham complied but was nevertheless shot dead. The IDF opened an investigation into what it termed a "grave" incident; the soldier, a reservist, was released a week later by an Israeli court. The Jerusalem Post stated that the killing joined a series of "wrongful mistaken killings" of Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis since the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel "in which, to date, the prosecution and courts have been extremely lenient on the killers." Originally Sameh Zaytoun (Arabic: سامح زيتون), Ben Avraham was a resident of Hebron and had changed his name upon converting from Islam to Judaism. Following his conversion, he was jailed by the Palestinian Authority for 58 days in 2019. The Israeli government repeatedly denied his applications for Israeli citizenship, which The Times of Israel stated was "ostensibly due to his Palestinian heritage." On 29 March, Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel posthumously approved Ben Avraham's residency status.

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.