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Kiryat Arba or Qiryat Arba is an urban Israeli settlement in Southern Judea (Southern West Bank) adjoining the city of Hebron.

The Hebrew name is קִרְיַת־אַרְבַּע, meaning "Town of the Four [Giants]", and transliterated in Standard Hebrew as Qiryat Arbaʻ and in Tiberian Hebrew as Qiryaṯ-ʼarbaʻ. The equivalent Arabic name is قرية أربع Qiryat ʼArbaʻ. The place is mentioned in the English Bible as Kirjath-arba. Biblically, it is generally regarded as another name for Hebron.^[1]

In 1968, a group of future Jewish Gush Emunim members led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger and Rabbi Eliezer Waldman founded Kiryat Arba immediately to the east of Hebron. Settlements around Hebron like this are claimed to be justified also in light of the 1929 Hebron massacre and the continuing presence of Jews in the area until then. Building began on an abandoned military base in 1970, and residents moved in 1971. The town is a self-sufficient community, with pre-nursery though post-secondary educational institutions, medical facilities, shopping centers, a bank and a post office. Kiryat Arba attained Local council status in 1979. The population in December 2006 was approximately 7,000, with an additional 2,700 Israelis living in a number of smaller surrounding settlements, including immigrants from the CIS and a community of Bnei Menashe from Manipur and Mizoram.[4] While Kiryat Arba is located within the territory of the Har Hebron Regional Council, it is an independent local council. Beit HaShalom, was established in 2007. [5] [6] [7]

The town is home to the Meir Kahane Memorial Park, in memory of the founder of Kach, an Jewish Far-Right organization designated as a terrorist group by the US, the EU and Israel. The grave of Baruch Goldstein, who perpetrated the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre also lies within the park and has become a place of pilgrimage for the Far Right^[2].

The chief rabbi of the town is Dov Lior, who also serves as rosh yeshiva of the local Nir Yeshiva.

In the Book of Joshua (14:15) it says: "Now the name of Hebron previously was Kiryat Arba, he [Arba] was the great man among the giants [Anakim]..." [8]. According to the rabbinical commentator Rashi, Kiryat Arba ("Town of Arba") means either the town (kirya) of Arba himself, the giant who had three sons, or is referring to four giants: Arba and his three sons, Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmi who are described as being the sons of a "giant" in Numbers 13:22: "On the way through the Negev, they (Joshua and Caleb) came to Hebron where [they saw] Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmi, descendants of the Giant (ha-anak)..." [9] which is according to the Targum and Saadia Gaon, but some say that Anak ("Giant", see Anak) is a proper name (Targum Jonathan and the Septuagint). [10], and that he, Anak, may have been the father of the three others mentioned in the Book of Numbers as living in Hebron which the Book of Joshua says was previously called Kiryat Arba.

See also International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict

The establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been described as "having no legal validity" by the UN Security Council in resolutions 446, 452, 465 and 471. These resolutions were made under Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter which relates to the "Pacific Settlement of Disputes" between parties, and as such have no enforcement mechanisms. The International Court of Justice has interpreted that all UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ^[3] in its 1971 Namibia non-binding advisory opinion. Some have argued that this non-binding character does not mean that advisory opinions are without legal effect, because the legal reasoning embodied in them reflects the Court's authoritative views on important issues of international law and, in arriving at them, the Court follows essentially the same rules and procedures that govern its binding judgments delivered in contentious cases submitted to it by sovereign states. An advisory opinion derives its status and authority from the fact that it is the official pronouncement of the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. ^[4] Many politicians and legal scholars have argued that UN Security Council resolutions are only legally binding if they are made under Chapter VII of the Charter. ^{[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]}

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention [11] states in paragraph 6: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies". Based on this article, the International Court of Justice has asserted in paragraph 120 of its Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004 that the settlements are illegal. ^[17] Israel ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention on 6-7-1951. [12]

Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the International Criminal Court Rome Statute defines "[t]he transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies" as a war crime. [13] Israel has not ratified the Statute.

The European Union^[18] and the General Assembly of the United Nations^[19] consider the settlements to be illegal.

International human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also denounced the settlements as illegal[14][15], though the Anti-Defamation League has argued that they are legal. ^[20]

• The Jewish Community of Hebron

v • d • e Judea and Samaria Area
Cities	Ariel | Beitar Illit | Ma'ale Adumim
Regional committees	Hebron
Local councils	Alfei Menashe | Beit Aryeh | Beit El | Efrat | Elkana | Giv'at Ze'ev | Har Adar | Immanuel | Karnei Shomron | Kedumim | Kiryat Arba | Ma'ale Efrayim | Modi'in Illit | Oranit
Regional councils	Gush Etzion | Har Hebron | Matte Binyamin | Megilot Dead Sea | Shomron | Southern Jordan Valley (Biq'at HaYarden)