Tzur Shalem is an

Israeli outpost In Israeli law, an outpost (, ''Ma'ahaz'' lit. "a handhold") is an unauthorized or illegal Israeli settlement within the West Bank, constructed without the required authorization from the Israeli government in contravention of Israeli statutes ...

attached to the

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 ...

of Karmei Tzur in The

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� ...

settlement bloc 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 ...

. The outpost is under the jurisdiction of the

Gush Etzion Regional Council The Gush Etzion Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Azorit Gush Etzion'') is a Regional council (Israel), regional council in the northern Judean Hills, the northern part of the southern area of the West Bank, administering the Israeli settlements, se ...

. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. Tzur Shalem was founded in March 2001 in memory of Shmuel Gillis, a senior

hematologist Hematology ( spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the production ...

Hadassah Medical Center Hadassah Medical Center () is an Israeli medical organization established in 1934 that operates two university hospitals in Jerusalem (one in Ein Karem and one in Mount Scopus) as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

who lived in Karmei Tzur. Dr. Gillis was killed by Palestinians earlier in 2001. The outpost, which is just from its parent community of Karmei Tzur, started with 6 caravans. By the summer of 2004 it had grown to 22 caravans. In June 2002 Palestinians killed Eyal and Yael Sorek and army reservist Shalom Mordechai in Tzur Shalem. The attack called the legitimacy of outposts in general into question in Israel. Avraham Rotem, a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said that a settlement of even five families would require 60 to 80 soldiers along with a vast amount of infrastructure in order to defend it. Rotem claimed that " ything can be defended. But the question is if it is smart, and whether the IDF needs this on its head, and the answer to that question is no. These tiny settlements are an albatross on the neck of the IDF."

References

{{coord, 31.6061577, N, 35.0961215, E, region:PS, display=title Gush Etzion Regional Council Populated places established in 2001 Israeli settlements in the West Bank Israeli outposts Unauthorized Israeli settlements