Eli

Eli is a large Israeli settlement in the West Bank organized as a community settlement, located on Highway 60, north of Ramallah, between the Palestinian villages of As-Sawiya and Qaryut, part of whose lands were expropriated for the establishment of Eli. It was named after the biblical high-priest who served in the Tabernacle in nearby biblical Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:9). In it had a population of . The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. History Eli, named after the Biblical high priest of the Israelites, was established on 11 September 1984, when three families moved into recently placed buildings. It was the first settlement to be attempted without a core group of families. Several families from Ofra, Kokhav HaShahar, and Shilo were persuaded to come for at least a year while more families would be found. The settlement was originally called 'Givat Levona' after the adjacent settlement Ma'ale Levona. The Amana website states that the initial vision was creating 'one long territorial contiguity' of Jewish settlers between Eli and both Shiloh and Ma'ale Levona. According to ARIJ, Israel confiscated land from two nearby Palestinian villages in order to construct Eli: 1,551 dunums from As-Sawiya and 623 dunums from Qaryut.