Israel Demolishing Palestinian Neighborhood to Build Jerusalem’s “Silicon Valley”

In August 2024, Sameer Kirresh received a demolition order for his car dealership in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz.

“How could [the Jerusalem Municipality] come and tell me they want to demolish this place because I don’t have a permit,” Kirresh told Jerusalem Story.1 “I’ve got the permit.”

The demolition notice claims Kirresh doesn’t have a building permit for his business, despite Kirresh revealing that his family received permission (with documentation to prove it) in 1973. According to Kirresh, the order is also seeking to raze the office in order to widen the street.

This demolition order is only one of nearly a hundred notices distributed to Wadi al-Joz residents,2 which locals, lawyers, and activist groups say is to build a tech hub known as “Silicon Wadi” atop the neighborhood’s ruins (“wadi” is Arabic for “valley”).

The Silicon Wadi project will be situated along the Wadi al-Joz road and Othman bin Affan Street.

The municipality announced Silicon Wadi on June 3, 2020.3 The plan, which falls within the much larger “East Jerusalem City Center Plan,”4 calls for building 8 to 14-story-high commercial structures and hotels on approximately 14 acres of land.5 It includes the construction of 200,000 square meters of high-tech office and workspaces at an investment of NIS 200 million ($56 million). An additional 50,000 square meters would be taken by new hotels, and 50,000 by commercial space. The finished complex would be twice the size of Grand Central Station in New York.6

However, it will also entail demolishing an entire industrial zone for Palestinian businesses that was established in the 1950s, before Israel occupied East Jerusalem.

While the city has touted this massive project as creating opportunities for local Palestinian workers, the community is highly skeptical and believes the project will benefit primarily or solely Israeli Jewish business interests, while allowing for the elimination of the only Palestinian industrial zone in East Jerusalem.7 Many of the 160 to 180 Palestinian business owners there are second- and third-generation owners whose families have been there as far back as 1957. Most of the area is dedicated to car dealerships and auto repair shops.

In an interview in 2020, Kamal Obeidat, the chairman of the board of the Arab Chamber of Commerce, told Middle East Eye that the Chamber sees the project as a means of Judaization, since Israeli companies would own and manage the companies being based there.8

To implement this project, the municipality is aiming to widen the main street of Wadi al-Joz. The project also calls for converting 13 streets into pedestrian-only throughfares,9 which could be devastating for those who live in or near the area.

In January 2024, the Jerusalem Municipality approved construction to begin for Silicon Wadi.10

Palestinian attorney Muhannad Jabara filed a petition on behalf of Wadi al-Joz business owners against the project. In September 2024, the Jerusalem District Court rejected the appeal, and now Wadi al-Joz tenants and business owners are planning to file an appeal with the Israeli Supreme Court over the matter. A portion of the demolition orders—including Kirresh’s—are currently frozen because of the appeal. However, the municipality has, thus far, demolished five structures,11 since the recipients of these demolition orders didn’t seek legal assistance.

Jabara explained that according to Israeli law, the municipality can request the judicial authorities to issue demolition orders for legal buildings if it’s in the public’s benefit. In this case, widening Wadi al-Joz’s main street is considered a public need.

Silicon Wadi is a product of Israeli Government Decision 3790, a five-year plan seeking to reduce socioeconomic gaps in East Jerusalem and boost economic development. However, the initiative has been criticized for manipulating policies to advance state and settler interests at the expense of Palestinians.

“It’s good on paper,” Jabara told Jerusalem Story.12 “And to show the world that [Israel] wants . . . to invest in East Jerusalem, but actually it’s not.”

During the initial stages of the Silicon Wadi plan, the Jerusalem Municipality released a promotional video for the project—emphasizing Wadi al-Joz’s importance as an entrance into East Jerusalem.13 This, Kirresh says, is the main motive behind Silicon Wadi.

“[Israel] wants to reconnect West Jerusalem with East Jerusalem,” Kirresh said. “The street now is going to Sheikh Jarrah and from there to West Jerusalem. So, they want to rebuild the streets so they can connect it to the Western Wall.”

Wadi al-Joz’s proximity to the Old City—where the Jewish holy site of the Western Wall is located—has made it a prime target for Israeli authorities seeking to transform Jerusalem from a multi-religious city to a purely Jewish metropolis. To advance this agenda, the Israeli state (often in partnership with settlers) is working to change the demography of the Palestinian neighborhoods surrounding the Old City, such Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, and others.

While the plan purports to be a profitable opportunity for Wadi al-Joz’s landowners, many are more concerned the state will exploit the project to seize Palestinian land.

“Anytime there is a tender or a plan, Israel brings in the Custodian for Absentees’ Property and makes all kinds of excuses to say, ‘You don’t have enough proof that this is your land,’” Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli nonprofit that monitors Jerusalem policy, told Jerusalem Story.14

Israel froze East Jerusalem’s land registration process when it occupied the area in 1967. This, along with Palestine’s centuries-long history under foreign rule, has made proving property ownership particularly complex for Palestinians, who may often have records with different countries or none at all.

And while the city boastfully claims that Silicon Wadi will boost the economy and create jobs, Palestinians are unlikely to be on the receiving end, and certainly not in any measurably profitable way or ways that give them ownership.

“Will it be Palestinian companies? Probably not. Will it be Palestinian workers? You can doubt it,” Tatarsky said. “In the guise of economic development, a Palestinian business area will be transformed into an Israeli business area—an economic settlement.”

Instead, the Palestinian community is demanding that Wadi al-Joz be maintained as a Palestinian industrial zone, and that the city provide more housing for them.

“What we need in Jerusalem is places to live,” Kirresh said.

A severe housing shortage has emerged in East Jerusalem because of the municipality failing to approve outline plans (which allow for residential construction) for the majority of East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods. Building permits can’t be issued without an outline plan—often forcing many Jerusalem residents to build illegally.15

When outline plans are initiated in Palestinian neighborhoods, the number of housing units pales in comparison to those in Israeli areas. For instance, according to 2019 data collected by Ir Amim, only 7.4 percent of the 21,000 housing units advanced across Jerusalem were for the city’s Palestinian population.16

“There were several sessions in 2021 to gather information [on Silicon Wadi],” Jabara said, during a meeting for Wadi al-Joz business owners about the project on October 16, 2024. “Many locals were invited to attend these sessions by the municipality, and the people who attended objected to a hi-tech park and said more housing units are needed.”

The Silicon Wadi plan indeed calls for building approximately 300 housing units, yet 20 percent of the housing is designated for small apartments measuring 80 meters17 (860 square feet)—an inadequate size for couples and families.

Kirresh told Jerusalem Story that residents believe these small apartments will serve as student housing for the adjacent Hebrew University, not as housing for Palestinian residents of the city.

According to Ir Amim, the municipality has long envisioned Silicon Wadi as a commercial center rather than a complex meeting the community’s severe housing and employment needs.