Rawabi (, meaning "The Hills") is the first planned city built for and by Palestinians in the West Bank, and is hailed as a "flagship Palestinian enterprise." Rawabi is located near Birzeit and Ramallah. The master plan envisages a high tech city with 6,000 housing units, housing a population of between 25,000 and 40,000 people, spread across six neighborhoods.Harriet Sherwood, 'Rawabi rises: new West Bank city symbolises Palestine's potential,' The Guardian 8 August 2013.
Construction began in January 2010.Rawabi: Work Begins On First Planned Palestinian City. HuffPost, 12 January 2010 By 2014, 650 family apartments housing an estimated 3,000 peopleJack Moore, 'Palestine's Billion-Dollar City Can Finally Open,' Newsweek 27 February 2015. had been completed and sold, but could not be occupied while negotiations over supplying the city with water stalled.Avi Issacharoff 'Waterless, the first planned Palestinian city sits empty,' The Times of Israel 20 February 2015 The city remained without water for an extended period due to structural and institutional obstacles.Anne‑Marie O’Connor, “New Palestinian city has condos, a mall and a sports club — but no water,” *The Washington Post* (2015). Though Israeli authorities technically approved a water connection, Minister Silvan Shalom withheld implementation, citing the need for the Israeli–Palestinian Joint Water Committee (JWC) to reconvene.ORSAM Report on the Joint Water Committee (2015). The JWC, established under the 1995 Oslo Accords, requires mutual approval for projects, a system that gives Israel de facto veto power over Palestinian water infrastructure.Jan Selby, “How did Rawabi get its water?”, *Middle East Monitor* (2015). Construction of the pipeline itself was complicated by the fact that parts of its route cross Area C, which is under full Israeli military control.“The long road to Rawabi,” *The Guardian* (2016). When the hookup was finally approved in early 2015, the initial allocation was limited to 300 cubic meters per day, enough for only a fraction of the city’s anticipated population.
Rawabi covers approximately 6.3 million m² and is being built in phases.Rawabi, “RAWABI – PALESTINE’S FIRST PLANNED CITY,” Rawabi City (2015). The first phase includes around 5,000 housing units.AECOM/Rawabi EIA, “Rawabi City Environmental Impact Assessment,” 2010. Initially designed to accommodate roughly 25,000 residents, the full plan aims for a population of up to 40,000.Rawabi, “Winter Edition,” Rawabi City (2024). As of the most recent report, 250 units have been sold and nearly 1,000 more are under construction.Rawabi, “Palestine’s First Planned City, Enters New Phase,” Rawabi City (2024).
Occupancy in Rawabi has been limited, with an estimated 2,500–3,000 residents as of 2024, below the projected population for the first phase.“Flagship Palestinian city opens $450m plaza, hoping to attract young techies,” *The Times of Israel* (2024). Several infrastructure components, including the main access road and parts of the water network, cross Area C of the West Bank, where Israeli control necessitates annual permits and delays full utility service to the city.United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, "West Bank Report," 2017.Rawabi City, "Water Infrastructure Update," 2015. Construction and infrastructure development have continued, but full occupancy has been constrained by limited water supply, road access, and overall permitting requirements.
The project has seen approximately $1.2 billion in investment. Infrastructure plans include 25 km of roads, water systems, sewage treatment, and green space irrigation.
Location Rawabi is northwest of Ramallah, north of Birzeit, to the north of Jerusalem, 40 km to the east of Tel Aviv, and south of Nablus. Amman, the capital of Jordan, is to the east. In addition, the Israeli settlement of Ateret is nearby. Masri envisages the latter as becoming a suburb of Rawabi in the future.Lyse Doucet and Jane McMullen, 'The new Palestinian city that lacks only one thing,' BBC News 7 February 2015. The construction site stretches over two ridges, above sea level.Building the Palestinian Dream on shaky ground. Haaretz On a clear day, it is possible to see the Mediterranean Sea, to the west, and the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv from the site. Rawabi's municipal boundaries will encompass 6,300,000 square meters of land. Residential and commercial development is based on a population estimate of 40,000.
Financing One problem was that the West Bank lacked a traditional mortgage system. To that end, the development was linked to a $500m affordable mortgage scheme. The Washington Post reports that Rawabi "is specifically designed for upwardly mobile families of a sort that in the United States might gravitate to places such as Reston, VA. The developments are also relying on another American import, the home mortgage, including creation of a Fannie Mae-style institution for the West Bank".
Rawabi is the largest private sector project in Palestinian history.A Shining City on a Hill. Time, 31 March 2011Building peace. CTV Television, 29 August 2010 It was initiated at the Palestine Investment Conference, which took place in Bethlehem in 2008.Construction begins on Rawabi, the first Palestinian planned city. AMEinfo.com, 5 January 2010 The project involves a public-private partnership between Masri's property investment firm, Bayti (My home) Real Estate Investment Company, and his primary corporation, Masser International, which provided a third of the billion dollar investment, together with financial backing from Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company (the Qatar Investment Authority's property investment fund), Massar International, and the Palestinian National Authority.
The total cost of the development, mostly funded by the Qatari company LDR and Masri, a native of NablusElhanan Miller, 'In Rawabi, the brand-new Palestinian city, both sides win,' The Times of Israel 19 February 2014 and Palestinian multimillionaire, is estimated at US$850 million. As of June 2015, the total investment in Rawabi is US$1.2 billion. Masri sees the development as an integral part of a nation-building project, the construction of a future Palestinian state. He makes the claim that when he was a boy in Nablus, merely carrying a Palestinian flag on the streets was sufficient to get one shot by Israeli soldiers. To complete the project, it was calculated that 8,000 and 10,000 new jobs would be created in the Palestinian construction sector. The Palestinian Authority is responsible for providing off-site infrastructure, while Bayti is tasked with the design and development of the city. According to The Rawabi economic growth strategy, from 3,000 to 5,000 new jobs in "knowledge economy" industries including information technology, pharmaceuticals and health care would result from its development.
On 15 March 2010, two grant agreements were signed by Bashar Masri, Managing Director of Bayti Real Estate Investment Company and chairman of Massar International, and Leocadia I. Zak, Director of the United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), in the presence of US Consul General Daniel Rubinstein. The USTDA grants funded two feasibility studies. The first study to develop a master plan for Rawabi's ICT infrastructure and services was won by American management consultancy company Decision/Analysis Partners LLC of Fairfax, Virginia. The second study examined the possibility of building a tertiary waste water treatment facility for Rawabi and surrounding communities. Previously, United States Senator John Kerry visited the construction site on 28 February along with Rubenstein and David Harden, senior advisor to the American special envoy to the Middle East, George J. Mitchell. In 2009 the Palestinian Authority undertook to provide $150 million to cover infrastructural costs for power, water, sewerage, schools and roads, but failed to honour its promise. As a result, purchasers must pick up the tab, which translates into a rise of 10 to 12 percent to the cost of houses.
The development faced a financial crunch in 2014 due to a cash flow crisis when Masri was unable to collect $70 million from homeowners and mortgage banks for the first batch of 600 apartments, because they cannot be delivered until the access road, and a water supply, are given Israeli permits.
Master plan The Palestinian National Authority did not need Israeli approval for construction since the land for Rawabi falls entirely within Area 'A', which is under full Palestinian control.Building Rawabi. The Jerusalem Post, 3 August 2010 The Rawabi master plan and Preliminary Design was developed by a Multi-disciplinary team from AECOM led by Raphael SamachScott Lewis, 'First Palestinian Planned City Taking Shape,' Enr.com.8/3/2011. (now with SAMACH+SEO), in cooperation with local experts from Birzeit and An-Najah National universities and the technical teams of Bayti. It has been approved by the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Higher Planning Council. The design input included concerns to avoid looking like a Palestinian version of an Israeli settlement: indigenous trees are planted; red roofs- the most vigorous aestyhetic symbol of such settlements - are ruled out; defensive walling off of the township ignored, and guard towers are not envisioned.Arwa Aburawa, INTERVIEW: The Man Behind Palestine’s Green City Rawabi – Bashar Masri,' Green Prophet 2 May 2011
Constructing the city has created jobs for 8-10,000 Palestinians, a third of them women, and their pay is 30% above the Palestinian minimum wage. The residential areas will surround a city centre that includes banks, shops, petrol stations, offices, eight schools, playgrounds, walking trails, two mosques, a Greek Orthodox church, a hospital, hotel, a seven-screen cinema and numerous other arts venues, in a central piazza lined with arcades and cafes. One third of the engineers and architects are women, a gender participation without precedent in the Arab world. The design envisages an elaborate recycling infrastructure: water towers are not included in buildings, neither are satellite dishes permitted. Water is to be recycled by a computerized system, and any excess will provide watering for the city's parks. The public transport system is to run on electricity, providing free transit to residents, with visitors only being required to pay. Though an industrial zone is planned, with paved roads already leading to the site, permission has yet to be received from the Israeli authorities. A soccer field, and Roman amphitheatre girded by honey-coloured columns, and seating 12,000, has been completed.
The first 700 units were offered for sale in June 2013, with prices ranging from $60,000 to $170,000, 90% of which were sold, according to the developer, within a month. Of the initial purchasers of homes in Rawabi by 2013, 7% were single professional women and 11% were Palestinian Christians. Lisa Goldman, director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at New America, argues that the project draw attention from the ongoing issues of military occupation, and notes that the home-buyers are middle-class couples earning 20 times more than the average Palestinian income.
Greening project Thousands of saplings are being planted as part of a greening project which involves growing a forest around the city. The Jewish National Fund is donating 3,000 saplings to the project, the announcement of which sparked some internal Israeli and Jewish controversy. Saplings have also been donated by the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture and by local and international organisations, corporations and individuals.
Rawabi Tech Hub