Gush Etzion (Hebrew: גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן, lit. Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Jewish communities located in the Judaean Mountains directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the Judean Hills. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural villages that were founded in 1940-1947 on property purchased in the 1920s and 1930s, and destroyed by the Arab Legion before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in the Kfar Etzion massacre. The area was left outside the 1949 armistice lines. These settlements were rebuilt after the 1967 Six-Day War, along with new communities that have expanded the area of the Etzion Bloc. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.