Adora ( he, אֲדוֹרָה, also Adorah) is an

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

organised as a

community settlement A community settlement ( he, יישוב קהילתי, ''Yishuv Kehilati'') is a type of village in Israel and the West Bank. While in an ordinary town anyone may buy property, in a community settlement the village's residents are organized in ...

in the

Judean Mountains The Judaean Mountains, or Judaean Hills ( he, הרי יהודה, translit=Harei Yehuda) or the Hebron Mountains ( ar, تلال الخليل, translit=Tilal al-Khalīl, links=, lit=Hebron Mountains), is a mountain range in Palestine and Israel wh ...

in the southern

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, northwest of

Hebron Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East J ...

. Established in 1984, the community ideologically identifies with the

Herut Herut ( he, חֵרוּת, ''Freedom'') was the major conservative nationalist political party in Israel from 1948 until its formal merger into Likud in 1988. It was an adherent of Revisionist Zionism. History Herut was founded by Menachem Begin ...

–

Betar The Betar Movement ( he, תנועת בית"ר), also spelled Beitar (), is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Chapters sprang up across Europe, even during World War II. After t ...

farming organization and falls under the jurisdiction of

Har Hevron Regional Council The Har Hevron Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית הר חברון, ''Mo'atza Azorit Har Hevron'') is an Israeli regional council in the southern Judean Hills area of Mount Hebron, in the southern West Bank, administering Israeli settle ...

. Under the terms of the

Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993;

of 1993 between Israel and the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establ ...

, Adora was designated Area "C" under full Israeli civil and security control. In its population was . The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. According to a 2006

Peace Now Peace Now ( he, שלום עכשיו ''Shalom Achshav'', ) is a non-governmental organization, liberal advocacy and activist group in Israel with the aim of promoting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Objectives/position ...

-report, 36.01 percent of the land Adora is built on, is privately owned, all or most of it by Palestinians. According to Israeli law, settlements on privately owned Palestinian land are illegal.

Etymology

Adora is named after the biblical town

Adoraim Adurim is a town mentioned in the Bible and the Apocrypha and related information. This town is listed by different sources as ''Adurim'', ''Adoraim'', ''Adora'' and ''Dora''. During the early Roman period, the city was inhabited by Edomites. Tod ...

mentioned in , one of the fortified cities of the ancient

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah ( he, , ''Yəhūdā''; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 ''Ya'údâ'' 'ia-ú-da-a-a'' arc, 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 ''Bēyt Dāwīḏ'', " House of David") was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Ce ...

under the rule of

Rehoboam Rehoboam (; , ; , ; la, Roboam, ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the last monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel and the first monarch of the Kingdom of Judah after the former's split. He was a son of and the successor to Solomon and a gr ...

. The name of the

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

town of Dura, located four kilometers south of Adura, is also derived from the ancient Adurim.

History

According to ARIJ, Israel confiscated about 1000

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...

s of land from the nearby

town of

Tarqumiyah Tarqumiyah ( ar, ترقوميا) is a Palestinian city located 12 kilometers northwest of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine. History Tarqumiyah is an ancient town situated on a rocky hill. Ci ...

in order to construct Adora. Adora was established in 1982 as a

Nahal Nahal ( he, נח"ל) (acronym of ''Noar Halutzi Lohem'', lit. Fighting Pioneer Youth) is a program that combines military service with mostly social welfare and informal education projects such as youth movement activities, as well as training ...

para-military outpost and demilitarized two years later when handed over to civilians. In 1983, a core group of families from

Kiryat Arba :''This article is mainly about the modern Israeli settlement, not the biblical town'' Kiryat Arba or Qiryat Arba ( he, קִרְיַת־אַרְבַּע, , Town of the Four) is an urban Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron, in the south ...

Beit Shemesh Beit Shemesh ( he, בֵּית שֶׁמֶשׁ ) is a city located approximately west of Jerusalem in Israel's Jerusalem District, with a population of in . History Tel Beit Shemesh The small archaeological tell northeast of the modern city wa ...

Kiryat Gat Kiryat Gat, also spelled Qiryat Gat ( he, קִרְיַת גַּת), is a city in the Southern District of Israel. It lies south of Tel Aviv, north of Beersheba, and from Jerusalem. In it had a population of . The city hosts one of the most a ...

, and

Or Akiva Or Akiva ( he, אוֹר עֲקִיבָא) (''light of Akiva''–in memory of Rabbi Akiva who was tortured and killed at this locale) is a city located in the Haifa District of Israel, on the country's Israeli coastal plain, coastal plain. It is lo ...

, joined one another in preparing to settle the barren hilltop. After a week of preparations at the Faculty of Agriculture in

Rehovot Rehovot ( he, רְחוֹבוֹת ''Rəḥōvōt'', ar, رحوڤوت ''Reḥūfūt'') is a city in the Central District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. In it had a population of . Etymology Israel Belkind, founder of the Bilu movement, ...

, about half the families of the original 23 were told to be ready to move into trailers to be installed at the site with the government's permission. In January 1984, the group was warned that another core group might occupy the trailers before them. On 11 and 12 January 1984, the group moved in and began a wave of settlement expansion in the region.

Geography

Adora is situated east of the

Israeli West Bank barrier The Israeli West Bank barrier, comprising the West Bank Wall and the West Bank fence, is a separation barrier built by Israel along the Green Line and inside parts of the West Bank. It is a contentious element of the Israeli–Palestinian c ...

, 6.4 kilometers from the Green line in the Judean hills northwest of

at an altitude of 692 metres (2270 feet). The settlement has a total area of about 360 square meters.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In the 27 April 2002 Adora terrorist attack, three Palestinian gunmen dressed like Israeli soldiers infiltrated the settlement of Adora on a

Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...

morning and attacked and killed four residents, including a 5-year-old girl, and injured seven. One of the assailants was later killed by the

IDF IDF or idf may refer to: Defence forces * Irish Defence Forces * Israel Defense Forces *Iceland Defense Force, of the US Armed Forces, 1951-2006 * Indian Defence Force, a part-time force, 1917 Organizations * Israeli Diving Federation * Interac ...

References

{{Har Hevron Regional Council Mixed Israeli settlements Nahal settlements Populated places established in 1982 1982 establishments in the Palestinian territories Community settlements Israeli settlements in the West Bank