Susya

Susya (Arabic: سوسية‎, Hebrew: סוּסְיָא) (Susiya, Susia) is an archaeological site in the southern Judaean Mountains of the West Bank that bears the archaeological remains both of a 5th-8th century CE synagogue and of a mosque that replaced it. The same name is applied to two separate communities existing in the present day: on the one hand it refers to Palestinian villagers, recently expelled from there, who are variously reported as living in caves for decades there during grazing time or said to belong to a unique southern Hebron cave-dwelling culture present in the area since the early 19th century, and, on the other, it also denotes a religious Israeli settlement under the jurisdiction of Har Hebron Regional Council established in 1983 about a mile away. In 1986, the site of Palestinian Susya was declared an archeological site by Israeli Defense Ministry's Civil Administration, (a body formally under the Ministry of Defence, but subordinate to the military) and the IDF expelled the Bedouin inhabitants, whom the UN says lived in houses at the time. The Palestinians then moved a few hundred meters southeast of the original village.