Gush Etzion Junction ("Tzomet HaGush") also known as Gush Junction is a 120-

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 ...

(0.12 km²; 0.046 sq mi) business, commercial and tourism center 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 ...

, which serves as the entry point to the

Gush Etzion Gush Etzion ( he, גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן, ' 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 v ...

bloc of settlements. It is administered by the

Gush Etzion Regional Council The Gush Etzion Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית גוש עציון, ''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 B ...

. Long known as a "congenial meeting spot for Israelis and Palestinians," in the fall of 2015 the junction was the site of about ten Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

Geography

Gush Etzion Junction is located in the northern

Judean Hills 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 whe ...

at about 950 m above sea level. The junction is a 25-meter (82 ft) diameter roundabout (traffic circle) at the intersection of Route 60 and Route 367. Nearby communities include

Efrat Efrat ( he, אֶפְרָת), or previously officially Efrata ( he, אֶפְרָתָה), is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, established in 1983 in the Judean Mountains. Efrat is located south of Jerusalem, between Bethlehem and Hebron, ...

Elazar Eleazar (; ) or Elʽazar was a priest in the Hebrew Bible, the second High Priest, succeeding his father Aaron after he died. He was a nephew of Moses. Biblical narrative Eleazar played a number of roles during the course of the Exodus, from cr ...

Alon Shvut Alon Shvut ( he, אַלּוֹן שְׁבוּת) is an Israeli settlement located southwest of Jerusalem, one kilometer northeast of Kfar Etzion, in the West Bank. Established in June 1970 in the heart of the Etzion bloc, Alon Shvut became the ...

Kfar Etzion Kfar Etzion ( he, כְּפַר עֶצְיוֹן, ''lit.'' Etzion Village) is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, organized as a religious kibbutz located in the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Hebron in the southern West Bank, established ...

Migdal Oz Migdal ( he, מִגְדָּל) is a Hebrew word for tower. It may refer to: People * Alexander Migdal (born 1945), Soviet, Russian and American physicist, son of Arkady Migdal * Arkady Migdal (1911–1991), Soviet physicist * Ted Migdal (1918–19 ...

and

Beit Fajjar Beit Fajjar ( ar, بيت فجّار) is a Palestinian town located eight kilometers south of Bethlehem in the Bethlehem Governorate, in the central West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of o ...

. It is a 15-minute drive to the southern

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

neighborhood of

Gilo Gilo ( he, גִּלֹה) is an Israeli settlement in south-western East Jerusalem, with a population of 30,000, mostly Jewish inhabitants. Although it is located within the Jerusalem Municipality, it is widely considered a settlement, because a ...

and approximately 70 minutes' drive to

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

Establishments

Adjacent to the junction on the northwest are a

plant nursery A nursery is a place where plants are propagated and grown to a desired size. Mostly the plants concerned are for gardening, forestry or conservation biology, rather than agriculture. They include retail nurseries, which sell to the general p ...

, a shop selling snacks, cigarettes and lottery tickets and The Gush Etzion Winery and its mehadrin dairy/fish restaurant, BaYekev. On the southwest are a gas station, an automotive repair shop, an electronics store, a Judaica center and a Rami Levy discount supermarket. Attached to the supermarket is a hamburger joint, a

pizzeria A pizzeria is a restaurant focusing on pizza. As well as pizza, dishes at pizzerias can include kebab, salads and pasta. Many pizzerias offer take-away, where the customer orders their food either in advance or at the restaurant and then take ...

and a discount clothing store, all part of the Rami Levi group. In 2015 a competing chain of supermarkets,

Shufersal Shufersal ( he, שופרסל), formerly Super-Sol in English and Shufra-Sal in Hebrew, commonly known as Super-sal, is the largest supermarket chain in Israel, with a 20% market share (as of 2018). The company, which was established in 1958, was ...

opened a store. As of 2007, Rami Levi had begun construction of a two-story shopping mall as an extension to the south side of the supermarket and above it. A visitors' center is located to the west in Kibbutz Kfar Etzion as is the mehadrin dairy/fish restaurant, Gavna.

Terrorist attacks

The hitchhiking post at the junction has frequently been the site of attacks by Palestinians against Israeli citizens, many of which were foiled by alert Israelis.

Attacks

*October 2005: Three killed, three injured in a shooting attack at the junction. *January 2006: A Palestinian man stabs an Israeli man and girl; the attacker is shot and injured by an off-duty police officer. *December 2009: A woman is stabbed in the back by a Palestinian man. *November 2015: 2015 Gush Etzion Junction shooting on November 19, 2015, a Palestinian man shot and killed 3 people (including American student, Ezra Schwartz, and Alon Shvut resident Rabbi Yaakov Don) and wounded 5. On November 23, 2015, A Palestinian man stabbed and killed a 21-year-old student Hadar Buchris. He was shot and killed by security forces at the scene. In response, the government is planning bypass roads to separate Israeli vehicles from Palestinian vehicles at this junction. *September 2018: A Palestinian teenager, Khalil Jabarin, 17, from Yatta fatally stabbed a 45-year-old Israeli-American man who lived in Efrat, Ari Fuld, at a shopping mall near the Gush Etzion junction.

Foiled and failed attacks

*March 2006: A Palestinian man who arouses suspicion at the hitchhikers' post is found to be armed with a knife and arrested. *November 2010: A Palestinian man attempts to stab Israeli civilians at the junction and is arrested 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 ...

. *January 2011: Shots are fired in the area; there are no injuries. *October 2015: A Palestinian man tried to ram into Israelis waiting at a bus stop but hit the concrete blocks placed there to stop such attacks. A 20-year-old IDF soldier and a 21-year-old Israeli civilian were lightly wounded. He exited his car with a knife drawn and tried to stab his victims and was shot and killed. * March 2016 On March 15, 2016, an Arab woman described by authorities as a terrorist was injured after she drove her car to attack a bus shelter, but lost control as IDF soldiers shot into her car, and crashed into

bollard A bollard is a sturdy, short, vertical post. The term originally referred to a post on a ship or quay used principally for mooring boats. It now also refers to posts installed to control road traffic and posts designed to prevent automotive v ...

poles protecting the bus stop before she could hurt anyone. She was immediately apprehended and taken to hospital for treatment of her injuries.

References

External links

Gush Eztion Regional Council website
{{coord, 31, 38, 46.05, N, 35, 7, 55.85, E, display=title Road junctions in Israel Gush Etzion West Bank Roundabouts and traffic circles