For Sale: Luxury Villas, Under Israeli Occupation
Arab Israelis are purchasing vacation homes in Jericho, adding a new dynamic to their complex relationship with other Palestinians and Jewish Israelis.
Jericho Gate under development in August.
Photographer: Tanya Habjouqa for Bloomberg Businessweek
This story is part of Businessweek’s Cities issue, a collaboration with CityLab. Read more here.
Last year, two Palestinian sisters, Hilda and Diana, bought a villa in a desert oasis. Each of its three bedrooms has its own bathroom, and there are high-end appliances in the kitchen. Through remote-controlled sliding glass doors is a private swimming pool surrounded by antislip tiles and filled with water whose pH and chlorine level are monitored by computer. The villa, which cost them 1 million shekels ($264,000), is tucked discreetly behind concrete walls, one of about 1,400 similar vacation homes in the area, with an additional 700 planned or already under construction. It’s part of a 750-acre development called Jericho Gate, which is also expected to include a water park, shopping malls, manicured public areas and medical tourism facilities related to nearby mineral-packed mud baths.