A religious site in the most contested city in Israel with a complicated, bloody history is the center of gravity for the Israel-Palestine conflict

Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider

Tour guide Eliyahu McLean in front of the building known as the Cave of the Patriarchs to Jews and Ibrahimi Mosque to Muslims.

• Hebron is the biggest city in the Palestinian West Bank with a population of 200,000 Palestinians and around 1,000 Israeli settlers.
• The city is home to the most important religious site for Jews and Muslims outside of Jerusalem: a 2,000 year-old building known as the Cave of the Patriarchs to Jews and Ibrahimi Mosque to Muslims.
• The history of the religious site and the tense situation around it today illuminate much about the persistence of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
• I recently visited Hebron on a "dual narrative" tour. Half the tour was guided by an Israeli Jew and the other half was guided by a Palestinian from Hebron. Each told their side of what has happened at the Cave of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque.

It's not an exaggeration to say that if you want to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict, go to Hebron.

But, more specifically, if you want to understand how history and conflicting narratives collide into a tense and tenuous present, visit one of the region's most important and contested religious sites: the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Referred to as Ibrahimi Mosque by Muslims and Palestinians and the Tomb of the Patriarchs by Jews and Israelis, the structure is said to be the tombs of the biblical figures of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. The 2,000-year-old building was built by King Herod the Great, and is considered to be the oldest continuously used prayer structure in the world.

As both Muslims and Jews revere Abraham and his descendants, the site is immeasurably important to both cultures. And it has a contentious and bloody history over the centuries and even today.