Gilo

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Gilo (Hebrew: גִּלֹה) is an Israeli settlement in south-western East Jerusalem, with a population of 30,000, mostly Jewish inhabitants.

The Tunnels Highway to Gush Etzion runs underneath it on the east, and the settlement of Har Gilo is visible on the adjacent peak.

[9] The site was surrounded by a defensive wall and divided into large yards, possibly sheep pens, with houses at the edges.

Many of those who spent their first months in the country at the immigrant hostel in Gilo, including those from Iran, Syria, France and South America, chose to remain in the neighborhood.

[24] In 2009, the Gilo community center, one of the largest in the country, introduced a new hybrid water heating system that saves energy and greatly reduces pollution.

[26] Because Gilo is located beyond the 1949 Green Line, on land occupied since the Six-Day War, the United Nations,[27] the European Union[28] and Japan[29] refer to it as an illegal settlement.

Israel maintains that it has the right to build freely in Gilo because the neighborhood is within (expanded) Jerusalem municipal borders and not a West Bank settlement.

[32] In 2009, the Jerusalem Planning Committee approved construction of 900 new housing units in Gilo, sparking a fresh round of global criticism.

[33] From 2000, Beit Jala, a predominantly Palestinian Christian town, was used as a base by Fatah's Tanzim gunmen to launch sniper and mortar attacks[34] against Gilo.

[35] The Israeli government built a concrete barrier and installed bulletproof windows in the homes and schools on the periphery of Gilo, facing Beit Jala.