The Old City of Hebron is the historic city centre of Hebron in the West Bank, Palestine. The Hebron of antiquity is thought by archaeologists to have originally started elsewhere, at Tel Rumeida, which is approximately 200 meters (660 ft) west of today's Old City, and thought to have originally been a Canaanite city. Today's Old City was settled in Greek or Roman times. It became the center of the overall Hebron site during the Abbasid Caliphate.
Old City of Hebron
1863 (de Saulcy)
1918 (Luftstreitkräfte)
2011 (OCHAoPt)
Hebron is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies 930 metres (3,050 ft) above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank, and the third-largest in the Palestinian territories, it had a population of 201,063 Palestinians in 2017, and seven hundred Jewish settlers concentrated on the outskirts of its Old City. It includes the Cave of the Patriarchs, which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions all designate as the burial site of three key patriarchal/matriarchal couples. The city is often considered one of the four holy cities in Judaism as well as in Islam.
Downtown Hebron
Excavations at Tel Rumeida
Samson removes gates of Gaza (left) and brings them to Mount Hebron (right). Strassburg (1160–1170), Württemberg State Museum in Stuttgart
Cave of the Patriarchs