Israeli settlement in the West Bank
Metzad
Metzad, also known as Asfar (אַסְפָר), is an Israeli settlement organised as a community settlement in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank.
Established as by ultra-orthodox Jews in 1984, it is located south of Bethlehem in the eastern Judean Mountains, 14.5 km from the Green Line, outside the Separation Barrier. In January 2022 its population was 1110, up 35% from five years earlier. It falls under the municipal jurisdiction of the Gush Etzion Regional Council.
How locals move
Getting around Metzad the local way
- Get inHitchhiking (described below) can be difficult if you have a suitcase.
- Get inIf you prefer to hitchhike, take the 31 or 32 local buses to the trempiada (see below).
- Get inIf you don't have a car, the fastest, cheapest and easiest travel option is hitchhiking, or in Israeli English, "to catch a tremp".
- Get inThe main hitchhiking hub is in the southern exit from Jerusalem, a place called "Tzomet HaMinharot", or informally the trempiada.
- Get inFrom here you can get another tremp to a specific settlement, although many Israelis consider it unsafe to hitchhike here (in the past, it has been the site of kidnappings and shootings by Palestinians).
- Get inFrom Beit Shemesh, hitchhiking is easiest, but the 409 bus also runs several times a day.
- Get aroundThe only exception is Efrat, which is very long and narrow, so hitchhiking or taking an (infrequent) bus may be more effective.
- Get aroundHitchhiking (from within a settlement) is a safer and faster option.
From Wikivoyage: Gush Etzion, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-07.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see Commons), Wikimedia Commons.