Hebron

Hebron is one of Judaism’s four holy cities and a major religious center in Judaism and Islam.[1] Its religious significance also extends to Christianity, with the sanctuary associated with Abraham drawing attention from all three faiths.[2] The city combines a predominantly Muslim population, a renewed Jewish community, longstanding commercial and manufacturing activity, and holy places central to its religious identity.[2][5]

Known in Arabic as al-Khalil, Hebron lies approximately 30–32 kilometers south of Jerusalem, at an elevation of about 930 meters, or 3,050 feet.[5][1] The Arabic name al-Khalil and the Hebrew name Hebron are both associated with the meaning “friend.”[5] Hills and north–south-running wadis shape its terrain, while its mountainous climate has supported fruit cultivation.[5] Its position at a natural crossroads placed it on historically important travel routes.[6]

The Cave of the Patriarchs, or Cave of Machpelah, is the city’s principal religious landmark; Muslims know the complex as the Sanctuary of Abraham or al-Haram al-Ibrahimi.[2][7] Beyond that sanctuary, Hebron contains archaeological remains from the Bronze Age, First and Second Temple periods, and Roman and Byzantine eras, as well as buildings associated with its later Jewish community.[5][8] The modern city’s H-1 and H-2 security arrangements were explicitly framed as a division of responsibilities rather than a division of Hebron into separate cities.[4]

Excavations at Tel Hebron have uncovered Early and Middle Bronze Age city walls, providing material evidence of the city’s ancient settlement.[5] A four-meter-high Canaanite wall has been dated to approximately 2700–2400 BCE, while other fortifications date to the eighth–seventh centuries BCE.[8] Finds also include an Akkadian cuneiform tablet fragment, a First Temple-period seal inscribed “Shafatyahu [son of] Samakh,” and jar handles bearing Hebrew inscriptions, including “To the King of Hebron.”[8]

In the biblical account, Abraham lived in Hebron and purchased the Cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as a burial place for Sarah.[1] Jewish tradition associates the cave with the burials of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah.[5][1] The biblical narrative also identifies Hebron with the name Kiryat Arba and places David’s anointing as king there.[1] David made Hebron his capital for seven and a half years before taking Jerusalem.[5]

The monumental enclosure surrounding the Cave of the Patriarchs is commonly attributed to Herod the Great, whose reign lasted from 37 to 4 BCE, and portions of that structure survive.[1] Subsequent Byzantine, Crusader, and Mamluk construction altered and enlarged the complex.[7][1] Archaeological remains elsewhere in the city include Early Roman buildings and artifacts, an early Roman stepped street, pottery production facilities, and a late Roman or Byzantine winepress.[5][8] Coins from the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 CE have also been reported among the finds.[8]

Following the seventh-century Muslim conquest, Hebron was administered by successive Muslim dynasties until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, apart from a period of Crusader control.[7][1] The sanctuary underwent successive changes of religious use: a Byzantine church was followed by a mosque after the conquest, and the Crusaders later established a church there again.[7] Its main prayer hall was built as a Romanesque church in the twelfth century and subsequently converted back into a mosque under the Ayyubids.[1] Saladin reconstructed the mosque after the Crusader period, and the Mamluk conquest brought another phase of conversion and alteration.[7][1]

Mamluk authorities restricted entrance to the sanctuary to Muslims.[7][1] For centuries, Jews prayed outside the enclosure at the seventh step on its southwestern side rather than entering the building.[7] An authorized visit by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1929 was an exception to the general restriction on Jewish and Christian entry before 1967.[7]

Malkiel Ashkenazi settled in Hebron in 1540, organized Jewish communal life, and purchased the courtyard where the community lived.[5] Spanish Jewish exiles contributed to the community’s growth and spiritual activity during the Ottoman period, when Hebron developed into a rabbinic center.[5] Sephardi Jews established a synagogue named for Abraham in the sixteenth century, and Ashkenazi arrivals expanded the community in the nineteenth century.[7]

Jews lived among Muslim and Christian neighbors for hundreds of years before 1929, and religious students came from abroad to study in Hebron’s yeshivot.[9] In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jewish and Arab residents shared shops, hospitals, and holy sites, although relations also included rising tension and violence.[10] Beit Hadassah, a stone building constructed in the late nineteenth century, operated as a hospital serving both Jews and Arabs until the 1929 riots.[7]

World War I brought conscription, the loss of financial assistance from abroad, hunger, and disease to the Jewish community.[5] After British administration began in 1918, the community, then reduced to approximately 430 people, began to recover.[5] One historical estimate gives 700 Jewish residents in 1929 within a total city population of about 18,000.[5]

The transfer of the Slobodka Yeshiva from Lithuania to Hebron in 1924 strengthened the city’s role as a center of Jewish religious learning and attracted students from around the world.[11] The institution was destroyed during the 1929 violence and subsequently reestablished in Jerusalem under the name Hebron Yeshiva.[11]

Attacks on Hebron’s Jews began on August 23, 1929, and escalated the following day, when mobs entered Jewish homes.[9] The massacre formed part of a wider wave of riots and clashes between Arabs and Jews in Mandatory Palestine.[12] The wider outbreak followed an incident at the Western Wall and claims that Jews threatened Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.[9][12] Jerusalem’s Grand Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, advanced claims that Jews endangered Muslim sites on the Temple Mount.[9]

Published accounts give between 63 and 67 Jewish deaths in Hebron, with 67 appearing in many accounts and 63 in a separate historical reconstruction.[2][13] Victims included children and older people, while homes were looted and synagogues desecrated.[14][15] British High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor described what he saw: “The horror of it is beyond words. In one house I visited not less than twenty-five Jewish men and women were murdered in cold blood.”[9]

Some Arab residents sheltered Jewish neighbors despite the danger posed by the attackers.[2] A list preserved in the Zionist Archives records 435 Jews finding refuge in 28 Palestinian Arab homes.[2] One account identifies Haj Issa el-Kourdieh as having sheltered 33 Jews in his basement.[5] Survivors were subsequently protected by Arab policemen before British authorities evacuated them to Jerusalem.[13]

Aharon Reuven Bernzweig, an American Jewish visitor, recalled assurances from local residents that a pogrom could not happen in Hebron because the city had remained quiet during earlier unrest elsewhere.[9] He later wrote that an Arab family sheltered him and other Jews while attackers repeatedly demanded that the household surrender those hiding inside.[9] The family denied knowing their whereabouts.[9] Bernzweig recalled the atmosphere before the attack: “We had forebodings that something terrible was about to happen—but what, exactly, we did not know.”[9]

The massacre and evacuation ended the community’s continuous presence in the city.[9] A few Jewish residents returned in 1931, but this attempt to rebuild communal life ended after the Arab Revolt began in 1936, when the British again evacuated them.[7][13] The British investigation into the wider 1929 violence was led by Sir Walter Shaw.[12]

Hebron was part of British Mandate Palestine, came under Jordanian rule after the War of Independence, and came under Israeli control following the June 1967 Six-Day War.[2][1] Jewish residents returned after the war, and Jews were again permitted to enter and worship at the Cave of the Patriarchs.[7]

On April 4, 1968, Rabbi Moshe Levinger and associates checked into a Hebron hotel while presenting themselves as Swiss tourists.[16] The next day, they announced that they intended to remain.[16] They later moved to an adjacent Israeli military compound, and the government authorized the establishment of Kiryat Arba on Hebron’s outskirts.[2][16] An initial 250 housing units were planned in 1970.[1]

Miriam Levinger led another initiative in 1979, entering the Beit Hadassah clinic in Hebron’s Old Jewish Quarter with nine other women and 40 children.[16] After a terrorist attack outside the building killed six yeshiva students in 1980, Menachem Begin’s government permitted the expansion of Jewish settlement in Hebron.[16] By 2001, descriptions of the area identified Kiryat Arba and Givat Harsina on the city’s outskirts and four smaller Jewish settlements in the old city.[2]

A 2001 academic study described Kiryat Arba as an economic and educational center serving nearby Jewish settlements.[17] It also examined a conception among settlers of Kiryat Arba as part of Hebron rather than a separate settlement overlooking it, in the context of the area’s geographic and political separation from Jewish urban centers such as Jerusalem and Beer-Sheva.[17] The ancient Jewish cemetery became an early focus of symbolic reidentification for Jews returning to Hebron.[17]

On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler from Kiryat Arba, entered the Ibrahimi Mosque during prayer and opened fire on Muslim worshippers.[2] Accounts report 29 or 30 worshippers killed, while reported injury totals range from 60 to approximately 125.[1][18] The attack took place during the overlap of Purim and Ramadan, and Goldstein was killed by surviving worshippers.[18] Israeli authorities condemned the crime, although many settler leaders in Hebron did not.[2]

The massacre was followed by protests, riots, and clashes.[18] The Israel Defense Forces closed major sections of Shuhada Street, a main thoroughfare, to Palestinians.[10] Movement restrictions and checkpoints increased after the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000.[10] The sanctuary itself was partitioned after the massacre, establishing separate areas of worship for Jews and Muslims.[5]

UN Security Council Resolution 904 called for measures to protect Palestinian civilians, including a temporary international presence in Hebron.[19] The first Temporary International Presence in Hebron, or TIPH, operated from May to August 1994.[19] A later mission was established under a January 1997 agreement and continued for 22 years.[19]

TIPH’s stated tasks included monitoring and reporting on efforts to maintain normal life, helping create a sense of security among Palestinians, and promoting projects for their well-being.[19] It had no military or police functions.[19] Following Israel’s decision not to renew its mandate, the mission ceased operating on January 31, 2019.[19]

The 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement described Hebron as one city while setting out different security arrangements for H-1 and H-2.[20] Palestinian police were to assume responsibilities in H-1, while Israel retained responsibility for internal security and public order in H-2.[20] Civil powers were to pass to the Palestinian Council except in matters concerning Israelis and their property, and the Hebron municipality was to continue providing services throughout the city.[20]

The redeployment protocol was initialed on January 15, 1997, and signed on January 17.[19] It assigned Palestinian police security responsibilities in H-1 similar to those exercised in other West Bank cities, while retaining Israeli responsibility for internal security and public order in H-2 and for the overall security of Israelis.[4] H-1 comprises approximately 80 percent of Hebron’s municipal territory, and H-2 the remaining 20 percent.[5] H-2 includes the Jewish settlement and the Tomb of the Patriarchs.[5]

The protocol authorized up to 400 Palestinian police officers in H-1, equipped with 20 vehicles, 200 pistols, and 100 rifles for specified protective and response functions.[20] It provided for four Rapid Response Teams, a Joint Coordination Center, joint patrols, and joint mobile units.[21] These arrangements accompanied a commitment to smooth and normal movement within Hebron and into and out of the city.[19]

Specific economic and access provisions called for the wholesale market to reopen as a retail market.[4] Vehicle movement on Shuhada Road was to return gradually, within four months, to the situation that existed before February 1994.[4] These were obligations set out in the protocol, rather than a statement that all such changes subsequently occurred.[4]

Civil powers and responsibilities in H-2 were assigned to the Palestinian side except for matters relating to Israelis and their property, which remained under the Israeli Military Government.[4] Municipal services were to be provided regularly and continuously throughout Hebron at the same quality and cost.[21] The parties expressly reaffirmed Hebron’s unity and stated that dividing security responsibility was not intended to divide the city.[4]

The protocol also assigned Palestinian police responsibility for protecting named Jewish holy sites in H-1: the Cave of Othniel Ben Knaz, Elonei Mamre, Eshel Avraham, and Maayan Sarah.[20] Visits were to be accompanied by a Joint Mobile Unit to support free, unimpeded, and secure access.[20] The earlier Interim Agreement left existing arrangements at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in place because the parties had not agreed on new ones.[20]

Hebron’s population was 201,063 in 2017.[6] A 2021 estimate placed approximately 215,000 Palestinians and 800 Jews in the city; those figures describe the population reported at that time, not a current count.[3] The Palestinian population is predominantly Sunni Muslim.[5]

Historical figures illustrate the city’s growth over several decades.[6][1] The Israeli census of 1967 counted 38,309 inhabitants, all Muslim except for 106 Christians, while a figure for 1997 gives 119,093 residents.[1] A 2001 estimate put the Palestinian population at approximately 120,000 and described Hebron as the West Bank’s second-largest city.[2]

Other historical estimates use different totals or geographic frames.[5][17] A 2001 academic article reported approximately 70,000 Palestinians in Hebron, approximately 500 residents in the city’s Jewish enclaves, and about 5,000 in Kiryat Arba.[17] A separate overview estimated H-2’s population at 30,000–35,000 Palestinians and about 400 Jews.[5] These dated figures should not be combined as though they represent a single census or the same reporting period.[5][17]

Hebron is a commercial center with agriculture, manufacturing, and traditional glass and leather industries.[6] Its economy also includes handicrafts, small- and medium-scale industry, and construction.[5] Grapes and plums are among the fruits associated with the area, whose mountainous climate supports cultivation.[5]

The city has a longstanding role in trade, industry, and agriculture.[22] A description dating to 1947 identified established industries in glass, pottery, leather tanning, and textiles.[22] It also mentioned Hebron’s dry climate, seasonal visitors, and visits by Muslims and non-Muslims to the sanctuary associated with Abraham.[22]

Religious education has been another important part of the city’s cultural life.[9] Hebron’s yeshivot drew students from abroad before the 1929 massacre, and its Ottoman-era community developed a reputation as a rabbinic center.[5][9] The transfer of the Slobodka Yeshiva in 1924 and its later continuation in Jerusalem as Hebron Yeshiva connect the city’s educational history with institutions beyond Hebron itself.[11]

The Cave of the Patriarchs is enclosed by a monumental rectangular structure measuring approximately 34 by 59 meters and about 20 meters high.[7] Within the sanctuary are tombs bearing the names of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, their wives, and Joseph.[22] The complex’s surviving architecture reflects its successive Jewish, Christian, and Muslim historical settings and uses.[7][1]

Tel Hebron, also called Tel Rumeida, occupies a hill approximately one kilometer from the Cave of Machpelah.[7] Excavations have exposed Bronze Age defenses, First Temple-period structures and workshops, wine and olive presses, pottery kilns, and Second Temple-period ritual baths.[5][7] An archaeological site there opened to visitors in October 2018.[5]

A large Second Temple-period mikveh was discovered in 2014 during work directed by Emanuel Eisenberg and David Ben Shlomo.[8] Nearly 200 cubic meters in volume, it has a broad staircase descending toward a pool and an inner cave cut into the rock.[8] Conservation work included preserving plaster layers, stabilizing cracks, and removing accumulated sediment.[8] Its size and design have been interpreted as evidence of the importance of ritual purity to the Jewish community near the end of the Second Temple era.[8]

Beit Hadassah preserves another period of Hebron’s Jewish history.[7] The former hospital now contains a visitors’ center devoted to the city’s Jewish community.[7] The old Jewish cemetery is also a significant site of communal memory and was a focus for returning Jewish residents’ identification with the city.[17]

Other Jewish holy places named in the 1997 protocol include the Cave of Othniel Ben Knaz, Elonei Mamre, Eshel Avraham, and Maayan Sarah.[20] Their inclusion in the agreement linked the protection of religious sites and secure access for visitors with the city’s broader security coordination arrangements.[20]

Hebron’s holy places, Jewish settlement, property ownership, and division of authority remain subjects of significant political dispute.[23][24] The patriarchal burials are presented by the cited sources as biblical and religious traditions.[3] The enclosure’s construction is commonly attributed to Herod, although some researchers have proposed an earlier Hasmonean phase with possible Herodian additions.[7]

Historical interpretations of the 1929 violence differ over the relative weight of religious incitement, opposition to Zionism, and opposition to British rule.[25] A Jewish Review of Books review argues that explanations emphasizing the mufti’s campaign about holy places and those emphasizing nationalist opposition need not be mutually exclusive.[25] The review also discusses an account of the wider riots in which Jewish and Arab casualty totals were roughly equal but the circumstances differed, with most Jewish victims killed unarmed in their homes and many Arab deaths occurring during attacks or at the hands of British forces and Haganah members.[25]

Archaeological development at Tel Rumeida has generated disagreement: a Peace Now representative characterized a proposed project as settlement expansion under an archaeological guise, while a Civil Administration representative defended maintenance and restoration irrespective of future political agreements.[26] A separate 2012 dispute concerned a house near the Cave of Machpelah: Jewish occupants claimed to have purchased it, Palestinian claimants denied a sale, and Israeli authorities evacuated the occupants while the purchase claim remained under examination.[24] Shortly afterward, Jewish youths confronted Arab residents in Abu Sneina, and Border Guard officers cleared them from the area.[24]

In June 2026, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel had annulled parts of the Hebron arrangement concerning planning, zoning, and construction in H-2.[23] The Palestinian Authority denounced the move, while Israel’s Foreign Ministry denied that the agreement had been canceled and said the decision concerned jurisdiction over the Jewish community and Jewish heritage sites only.[23] The public Security Cabinet decision was unavailable, leaving the scope and meaning of the change disputed.[23]