Beit El
Beit El
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| Hebrew transcription(s) | ||
| • ISO 259 | Beit ʔel | |
| • Also spelled | Bet El (official) | |
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 Beit El
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| Coordinates: 31°56′37.5531″N 35°13′21.1765″E / 31.943764750°N 35.222549028°ECoordinates: 31°56′37.5531″N 35°13′21.1765″E / 31.943764750°N 35.222549028°E | ||
| Region | West Bank | |
| District | Judea and Samaria Area | |
| Founded | 1977 | |
| Government | ||
| • Type | Local council | |
| • Head of Municipality | Shay Alon | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 1,528 dunams (1.528 km2 or 378 acres) | |
| Population (2015) | ||
| • Total | 6,046 | |
| Website | www |
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Beit El (Hebrew: בֵּית אֵל) is an Israeli settlement and local council located in the Binyamin Region of the West Bank. The Orthodox Jewish town is located in the hills north of Jerusalem, east of the Palestinian city of al-Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah. In September 1997, Beit El was awarded local council status. The head of the local council is Shai Alon. In 2015 its population was 6,046. Its current population is 6,500 residents.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. The Ulpana neighbourhood was evacuated when it emerged that it was built on private Palestinian land. The World Zionist Organization halted land transactions in the Aleph neighbourhood of Beit El after it emerged that some 250 buildings there were constructed illegally, and fraud was suspected.
Bethel ("House of God") is mentioned in the Bible as the site where Jacob slept and dreamed of angels going up and down a ladder (Genesis 28:19). Some scholars identify Beit El with the site of the biblical Bethel. The first to establish the village of Beitin as the site of Bethel was Edward Robinson, in 1838.Henry Baker Tristram repeated this claim., J. J. Bimson and David Livingston proposed el-Bireh as the site of Bethel, a view rejected by Jules Francis Gomes, who wrote that "The voices of Livingston and Bimson have hardly been taken seriously by those who worked on the excavations of Bethel."
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