Hebron (/ˈhiːbrən, ˈhɛbrən/; Arabic: الخليل al-Khalīl, pronunciationⓘ or خَلِيل الرَّحْمَن Khalīl al-Raḥmān;[6] Hebrew: חֶבְרוֹן Ḥevrōn, pronunciationⓘ) is a Palestinian[7][8][9][10] city in the southern West Bank, 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Jerusalem.

With the exception of a brief Crusader control, successive Muslim dynasties ruled Hebron from the 6th century CE until the Ottoman Empire's dissolution following World War I, when the city became part of British Mandatory Palestine.

The name "Hebron" appears to trace back to two northwest Semitic languages,[a] which coalesce in the form ḥbr, having reflexes in Hebrew and Amorite, with a basic sense of 'unite' and connoting a range of meanings from "colleague" to "friend".

[27] The Book of Genesis mentions that it was formerly called Kirjath-arba, or "city of four", possibly referring to the four pairs or couples who were buried there, or four tribes, or four quarters,[28] four hills,[29] or a confederated settlement of four families.

The story of Abraham's purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs from the Hittites constitutes a seminal element in what was to become the Jewish attachment to the land[31] in that it signified the first "real estate" of Israel long before the conquest under Joshua.

It is said to have been wrested from the Canaanites by either Joshua, who is said to have wiped out all of its previous inhabitants, "destroying everything that drew breath, as the Lord God of Israel had commanded",[35] or the Tribe of Judah as a whole, or specifically Caleb the Judahite.

The Byzantine emperor Justinian I erected a Christian church over the Cave of Machpelah in the 6th century CE, which was later destroyed by the Sassanid general Shahrbaraz in 614 when Khosrau II's armies besieged and took Jerusalem.

[58] After the fall of the city, Jerusalem's conqueror, Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab permitted Jewish people to return and to construct a small synagogue within the Herodian precinct.

In 1106, an Egyptian campaign thrust into southern Palestine and almost succeeded the following year in wresting Hebron back from the Crusaders under Baldwin I of Jerusalem, who personally led the counter-charge to beat the Muslim forces off.

[79] The Kurdish Muslim Saladin retook Hebron in 1187 – again with Jewish assistance according to one late tradition, in exchange for a letter of security allowing them to return to the city and build a synagogue there.

Richard of Cornwall, brought from England to settle the dangerous feuding between Templars and Hospitallers, whose rivalry imperiled the treaty guaranteeing regional stability stipulated with the Egyptian Sultan As-Salih Ayyub, managed to impose peace on the area.

[93] The Italian rabbi Obadiah ben Abraham Bartenura wrote around 1490:I was in the Cave of Machpelah, over which the mosque has been built; and the Arabs hold the place in high honour.

[94]The expansion of the Ottoman Empire along the southern Mediterranean coast under sultan Selim I coincided with the establishment of Inquisition commissions by the Catholic Monarchs in Spain in 1478, which ended centuries of the Iberian convivencia (coexistence).

[106] In 1833, a report on the town in the weekly paper of the London-based Religious Tract Society wrote that Hebron had numerous well-provisioned shops and produced glass lamps which were exported to Egypt.

[110] Hebron, headed by its nazir Abd ar-Rahman Amr, declined to supply its quota of conscripts for the army and suffered badly from the Egyptian campaign to crush the uprising.

[115] In 1846, the Ottoman Governor-in-chief of Jerusalem (serasker), Kıbrıslı Mehmed Emin Pasha, waged a campaign to subdue rebellious sheiks in the Hebron area, and while doing so, allowed his troops to sack the town.

[130] In the late 19th century the production of Hebron glass declined due to competition from imported European glassware, although it continued to be popular among those who could not afford luxury goods and was sold by Jewish merchants.

The sole exception was the 8th generation Hebronite Ya'akov ben Shalom Ezra, who processed dairy products in the city, blended in well with its social landscape and resided there under the protection of friends.

[176] On May 15, 2006, a member of a group who is a direct descendant of the 1929 refugees[177] urged the government to continue its support of Jewish settlement, and allow the return of eight families evacuated the previous January from homes they set up in emptied shops near the Avraham Avinu neighborhood.

[184] Supporters of Jewish settlement within Hebron see their program as the reclamation of an important heritage dating back to Biblical times, which was dispersed or, it is argued, stolen by Arabs after the massacre of 1929.

Hebron IDF commander Noam Tivon said that his foremost concern is to "ensure the security of the Jewish settlers" and that Israeli "soldiers have acted with the utmost restraint and have not initiated any shooting attacks or violence".

[215] In August 2003, in what both Islamic groups described as a retaliation, a 29-year-old preacher from Hebron, Raed Abdel-Hamed Mesk, broke a unilateral Palestinian ceasefire by killing 23 and injured over 130 in a bus bombing in Jerusalem.

[227] One former IDF soldier, with experience in policing Hebron, has testified to Breaking the Silence, that on the briefing wall of his unit a sign describing their mission aim was hung that read: "To disrupt the routine of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.

"[228] Hebron mayor Mustafa Abdel Nabi invited the Christian Peacemaker Teams to assist the local Palestinian community in opposition to what they describe as Israeli military occupation, collective punishment, settler harassment, home demolitions and land expropriation.

[257][258] In an attempt to enhance the view of the Ibrahami Mosque, Jordan demolished whole blocks of ancient houses opposite its entrance, which also resulted in improved access to the historic site.

[261] It was established towards the end of the Ottoman period, its inhabitants being upper and middle class Hebronites who moved there from the crowded old city, Balde al-Qadime (also called Lower Hebron, Khalil Takht).

[261] This area includes high-rise concrete and glass developments and also some distinct Ottoman era one-storey family houses, adorned with arched entrances, decorative motifs and ironwork.

[230] The post-1967 settlement in Hebron was driven by theological doctrines from the Mercaz HaRav Kook, which consider the Land of Israel and its people as holy, and believe that the messianic Age of Redemption has arrived.

[292] In late 2019, the Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett instructed the military administration to inform the Palestinian municipality of the government's intention to reconstruct infrastructure in the old Hebron fruit and vegetable market in order to establish a Jewish neighbourhood there, which would allow for doubling the city's settler population.

[296] According to the account, this early Islamic food distribution center — which predates the Ottoman imarets — gave all visitors to Hebron a loaf of bread, a bowl of lentils in olive oil, and some raisins.