7km/4.5mi southeast of Ramla is the kibbutz of Gezer, founded in 1945. It lies to the south of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road in the Ayalon valley, through which since ancient times the road from the coast to Jerusalem has run. Southwest of the village is the tell of ancient Gezer. The importance of the place lay in its situation, which gave it control of the road. Excavations have shown that the Egyptians established a fortified settlement here, adjoining which the Hyksos built a fortress in the 18th century B.C. King Horam of Gezer was defeated by Joshua when he went to the help of Lachish (Joshua 10,33). Soon afterwards, in the 12th century B.C., the town fell to the Philistines.
Around 1000 B.C. David went out and "smote the host of the Philistines from Gibeon even unto Gazer" (1 Chronicles 14,16). Solomon fortified the strategically important town and, as at Hazor and Megiddo, built casemate walls on the south side, with a gate flanked by three chambers on each side of the passageway. As at Hazor and Megiddo, too, the town's water supply was ensured by the construction of a tunnel leading to a hidden spring. In subsequent centuries the town was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. In the second century B.C., during the Maccabean rebellion, Gezer was taken by Simon Maccabeus, cleansed of pagan idols and settled by orthodox Jews. The town was destroyed during the Jewish risings against Rome in the first and second centuries A.D., and thereafter remained virtually uninhabited. The tell of Gezer has been thoroughly investigated by German archeologists (1902-09), by an American team (from 1964) and by Yigael Yadin, and is well worth a visit by anyone with a particular interest in archeology.
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