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Gilo () is an
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...
in south-western
East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the portion of Jerusalem that was Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Captured and occupied in 1967, th ...
, with a population of 30,000, mostly
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
inhabitants. Although it is located within the
Jerusalem Municipality The Jerusalem Municipality (), the seat of the Israeli municipal administration, consists of a number of buildings located on Jaffa Road in the city of Jerusalem. History British Mandate town hall (1930) Jerusalem's old town hall was bui ...
, it is widely considered a settlement, because as one of the five Ring Neighborhoods built by Israel surrounding Jerusalem, it was built on land in the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
that was occupied by and effectively annexed to Israel following the 1967
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
and 1980
Jerusalem Law Jerusalem Law (, ) is a common name of Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel passed by the Knesset on 30 July 1980. Although the law did not use the term, the Israeli Supreme Court interpreted the law as an effective annexation of East Jeru ...
. The
international community The international community is a term used in geopolitics and international relations to refer to a broad group of people and governments of the world. Usage Aside from its use as a general descriptor, the term is typically used to imply the ...
regards
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...
s illegal under
international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...
, although Israel disputes this. Israel also disputes its designation as a settlement, and it is administered as part of the Jerusalem municipality.


Geography

Gilo is located on a hilltop in southwestern East Jerusalem separated from Beit Jala by a deep gorge. The Tunnels Highway to
Gush Etzion Gush Etzion (, ' 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� ...
runs underneath it on the east, and the settlement of Har Gilo is visible on the adjacent peak. Beit Safafa and Sharafat are located north of Gilo, while
Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...
is to the South.


History


Biblical era

A site dating to the period of Israelite settlement during Iron Age I (1200 – 1000 BCE) was identified and excavated at the modern site of Gilo. The site revealed a small planned settlement with dwellings along the perimeter of the site, together with pottery dating to the twelfth century BC. Mazar, Amihai, (1994) “The Iron Age I” in Ben-Tor, Amnon (Ed.), “The Archaeology of Ancient Israel”, pp. 286–295, Yale University Press, The southern part of the Iron Age site at Gilo is believed to be one of the earliest Israelite sites from this period. The site was surrounded by a defensive wall and divided into large yards, possibly sheep pens, with houses at the edges. Buildings at the site are amongst the earliest examples of the pillared
four room house A four-room house, also known as an "Israelite house" or a "pillared house" is the name given to the mud and stone houses characteristic of the Iron Age of Levant. The four-room house is so named because its floor plan is divided into four se ...
characteristic of Iron Age Israelite architecture, featuring a courtyard divided by stone pillars, a rectangular back room and rooms along the courtyard. The foundations of a structure built of large stones were also uncovered, possibly a fortified defense tower. The biblical town of Giloh is mentioned in the
Book of Joshua The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile. It tells of the ...
(Joshua 15:51) and the Book of Samuel (II Sam 15:12). Some scholars believe that biblical Giloh was located in the central
Hebron Hills The Hebron Hills, also known as Mount Hebron (, ), are a mountain ridge, geographic region, and geologic formation, constituting the southern part of the Judaean Mountains, Judean Mountains. The Hebron Hills are located in the southern West Ban ...
, whereas the name of the modern settlement was chosen because of its proximity to Beit Jala, possibly a corruption of Giloh. During the construction of the modern suburb of Gilo, archaeologists discovered a fortress and agricultural implements from the period of the First Temple period above the shopping center on Rehov Haganenet. Between Givat Canada and Gilo Park, they unearthed the remains of a farm and graves from the
Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...
period. Roman and Byzantine remains have also been found at various sites.


Modern era

According to ARIJ, Israel confiscated land from several Palestinian villages/towns in order to construct Gilo: *1,529
dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...
s from Sharafat and Beit Safafa,Beit Safafa & Sharafat Town Profile
p. 14
*594 dunums from
Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...
, *570 dunams from Beit Jala, *45 dunams from al-Walaja. During the
1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...
, the
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
ian army positioned its artillery at Gilo, heavily shelling West Jerusalem. An attempt to advance on Jerusalem from Gilo was beaten back in a fierce battle.
Kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
Ramat Rachel, located just north-east of Gilo, changed hands three times, ultimately remaining part of Israel, but Gilo remained on the side of the Green Line held by the Kingdom of Jordan until 1967. In 1970, the Israeli government expropriated 12,300 dunams of land to build Ring Neighborhoods around Jerusalem on land conquered in the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
. Gilo was established in 1973. According to some sources, the land belonged to the Palestinian villages of Sharafat, Beit Jala and Beit Safafa."Gilo It was established in 1973 on Beit Safafa, Sharafat and Beit Jala land..." With its expansion over the years, Gilo has formed a wedge between Jerusalem and Beit Jala-
Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...
.


Demography

In 2017, Gilo had a population of 30,900. From its inception, Gilo has provided housing to new Jewish immigrants from around the world. Many of those who spent their first months in the country at the immigrant hostel in Gilo, including those from Iran, Syria, France and South America, chose to remain in the neighborhood. Since the large influx of Soviet Jews in the 1990s, Gilo has absorbed 15% of all immigrants of that wave settling in Jerusalem. The immigrant hostel is now the site of an urban kibbutz, Beit Yisrael. Gilo is a mixed community of religious and secular Jews, although more Haredi families are moving in.


Schools and institutions

Beit Or (Home of Light), a hostel for
autistic Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing di ...
young adults, opened in Gilo in March 2008. The Ilan home for handicapped adults is located in Gilo. Gilo has 35 synagogues. In 2009, the Gilo community center, one of the largest in the country, introduced a new hybrid
water heating Water heating is a heat transfer process that uses an energy source to heat water above its initial temperature. Typical domestic uses of hot water include cooking, cleaning, bathing, and space heating. In industry, hot water and water heated t ...
system that saves energy and greatly reduces pollution. Park Gilo has a large adventure playground for children.


Settlement debate

Because Gilo is located beyond the 1949 Green Line, on land occupied since the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
, the United Nations, the European Union and Japan refer to it as an illegal settlement. Israel disputes this, and considers it a neighborhood of Jerusalem. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Gilo community council director Yaffa Shitrit, invited the world "to come and see the neighborhood of Gilo and to understand the geography. We're not a settlement, we're part of the city of Jerusalem, we're a neighborhood like Katamon."
Palestinians Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenou ...
regard it as occupied territory and make no distinction between Gilo and the West Bank settlements. Plans to expand Gilo have drawn criticism from the United States and United Kingdom. Israel maintains that it has the right to build freely in Gilo because the neighborhood is within (expanded) Jerusalem municipal borders and not a
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
settlement. In 2009, the Jerusalem Planning Committee approved construction of 900 new housing units in Gilo, sparking a fresh round of global criticism.


Arab-Israeli conflict

From 2000, Beit Jala, a predominantly Palestinian Christian town, was used as a base by Fatah's Tanzim gunmen to launch sniper and mortar attacks against Gilo. The Israeli government built a concrete barrier and installed bulletproof windows in the homes and schools on the periphery of Gilo, facing Beit Jala. The attacks on Gilo subsided after Operation Defensive Shield, with the rate slowing to three incidents of gunfire that year. On August 15, 2010, following years of relative quiet, the IDF started dismantling the concrete barrier, nearly a decade after its construction. Seventeen of the 19 passengers killed in the Patt Junction bus bombing were residents of Gilo.


Notable residents

* Eli Amir (born 1937), writer and civil servant * Yisrael Friedman (born 1923), rabbi * Rami Levy (born 1955), founder of Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing


See also

* Positions on Jerusalem * List of modern names for biblical place names


References


External links


Israeli Army Leaves Palestinian Town In West Bank After 2 Days of Tension
Clyde Haberman, ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''
Widening Hostilities, Israel Kills Chief of P.L.O. Faction
Joel Greenberg,
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

Israeli troops won't relinquish West Bank town
Michele Chabin,
USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

Israelis leaving Beit Jala, say Palestinians
, CNN
Israeli barrier draws artists to a cause
Matthew Kalman,
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

To truly see Jerusalem, try varied perspectives
Steven Erlanger, San Diego Union Tribune
School Students Heard Explosion Outside
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

Blast Hits Palestinian HQ
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...

Gilo, settlements, and the Green Line in perspective
{{Coord, 31, 43, 53, N, 35, 11, 11, E, region:PS_type:city(40000), display=title Ring Settlements, East Jerusalem Populated places established in 1973 Second Intifada Neighbourhoods of Jerusalem