The hike took about five hours and the hikers were met at the end by a vehicular convoy in which an additional 500 people took part.
The aim of the hike, similar to other activities the Land of Israel Youth have planned during the Jewish holidays and other vacation times, is to traverse areas in which Jews have become hesitant to travel due to the threat of Arab attacks.
Other places visited by the hikers were Sde Calev, the quarry at the Maaleh Hever junction, Givat Ziv (Antenna Hill) and Givat Elazar, where participants took part in a Simchat Beit HaShoeva (Water Libation) Sukkot celebration.
Addressing the participants were Rabbi Moshe Levinger, the father of the re-established Jewish community of Hevron, and Daniella Weiss, mayor of the Shomron town of Kedumim.
One of the hike’s organizers, Nadia Matar, who heads the Women in Green organization, said that to see “a river of youth marching with pride though these mountains, without fear and outside the fences, to places where only a few individuals have ventured for years, was a glorious and invigorating sight.”
Matar said that such actions were not merely symbolic, but are a powerful statement. “All of the Land of Israel belongs to the nation of Israel and we will march and go freely and without limitations from the authorities. We will not be silent and we will not rest until all the hilltops that we visited today grow and develop into full fledged towns.”
Among the marchers were hundreds of self-identified “settlers” from Haifa, Maalot, Rishon LeTzion, Ramat Gan, Hadera, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, Maaleh Adumim, Tekoa, Karmei Tzur, Kedumim, Efrat and elsewhere.