Aluma colony

Aluma is a moshav located in southern occupied Palestine, situated on the southern coastal plain about three kilometers northwest of Kiryat Gat. It was established in 1965 as a youth village named Hazon Yehzikel by a group called Mossadot Hinukh Azuri (literally, Regional Education Institute), consisting of young members from Agudat Yisrael. The moshav was built on the ruins of the depopulated Palestinian villages of Hatta and Kertia. In 1996, the Ministry of the Interior granted the moshav municipal council status and renamed it Aluma. In 2014, the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered a Byzantine-era church with a magnificent mosaic floor. The church was discovered during excavations prior to the construction of a new neighborhood in the moshav. In 2021, the number of settlers was approximately 1,163. Sources: Due to the scarcity of Arabic sources, Hebrew sources were used: the settlement’s Hebrew website / the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. The village of Hatta from the “Palestine Remembered” website.