Hebron

HEBRON

West Bank city, south of Jerusalem.

Hebron (in Arabic, al-Khalil; in Hebrew, Hevron ) is an ancient city, holy to both Judaism and Islam, because it is the site of the Machpelah burial cave of the Biblical and Qurʾanic figures Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their respective wives Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah. Later, in the tenth century b.c.e., David was proclaimed king in Hebron when Saul died, and it became his first capital. Above the Machpelah cave is a mosque complex known as the al-Haram al-Ibrahimi.

Although predominantly a town inhabited by Palestinian Arab Muslims, a small Jewish community lived in Hebron throughout the centuries. During British rule, the Jews left after the Arab-Jewish disturbances of August 1929 when sixty-four Jews were massacred. Hebron was annexed by Jordan in 1950 in the aftermath of the Arab-Israel War of 1948, and it was occupied by Israel during the Arab–Israel War of 1967. As a result, Jews were allowed to pray in the al-Haram, something formerly forbidden to them. A civilian Jewish settlement called Kiryat Arba was established nearby in 1968, and militant nationalist settlers also began moving into the heart of Hebron itself. Formation of the Gush Emunim movement furthered this development. Long a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence, Hebron's worst violence in decades occurred in February 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, a U.S.-born Jewish settler, entered the al-Haram al-Ibrahimi mosque and massacred twenty-nine Palestinian wor-shippers before he himself was killed.

Because of the presence of approximately 400 Jewish settlers in Hebron, it was the only major West Bank town (besides Jerusalem) from which Israeli forces did not withdraw in 1994 as a result of the Oslo Accord. The troops later withdrew from 80 percent of Hebron in January 1997 in accordance with the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron, leaving the 120,000 Palestinian residents under Palestinian rule. Yet, Israel retained control of the remaining 20 percent of the city, which included the downtown Palestinian market and the alHaram al-Ibrahimi, to protect the remaining Jewish settlers.

See also arab–israel war (1948); arab–israel war (1967); gush emunim; kiryat arba; oslo accord (1993).

benjamin joseph
updated by michael r. fischbach