This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Beth-Zur (also Beit Tzur, Bethsura) is a biblical site of historic and archaeological importance in the mountains of Hebron in southern Judea, now part of the West Bank.

[1] The settlement continued into the Iron Age, and a rare coin inscribed "the governor Hezekiah" attests to the existence of Beth-Zur during the Persian period.

[1] A citadel was built at Betsoura during the 3rd century BCE,[1] when a series of wars between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt rocked the region.

[2] The site's importance lay in its strategic location on a hilltop dominating the highway, preventing the approach of a hostile army from the Valley of Elah to the Judean plateau.

The fortified town then changed hands repeatedly until regaining the peaceful character lost during the Maccabean Wars, under the reign of John Hyrcanus (r. 134–104).

[citation needed] The western wall, the most visible remnant of the building, is standing to a height of 9.5 m.[11] Beithsur or Bethsura, as the Crusaders called Beth-Zur, was given in 1136 to the Hospitallers by the lord of Hebron.

[11] The existentialist author Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a play set in Beth-zur while he was prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, called Bariona or the Son of Thunder.