OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)
The Jerusalem Governorate has warned that the Israeli occupation government will approve next week a project to build a Jewish heritage center on the site of the abandoned Jerusalem International Airport in the town of Qalandia, north of Jerusalem.
Israel’s Channel 7 said the government would meet next week to approve a proposal by heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu to establish the center in the holy city’s northern part.
In a statement on Thursday, the Jerusalem Governorate explained that this center would be built in the historic reception hall of the airport, which was established during the British Mandate.
The project aims to transform the site into a heritage, tourist, and educational center serving the Israeli narrative about Occupied Jerusalem. The old airport buildings will be rehabilitated, including the historic passenger terminal.
The planning phase of the project will cost around 3 million shekels, funded from the Israeli ministry of heritage’s 2026 budget, which was previously approved.
Before Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1967, Jerusalem International Airport served as the only airport in the Palestinian territories. Israel later seized the airport and converted it into a limited domestic airport before shutting it down completely in 2000.
The airport was established in 1920, while British authorities started using it in 1924. It officially opened to regular flights in 1936.
In another incident, the Israeli government intends to establish two new settlements soon in the northern occupied West Bank, as part of an accelerating settlement scheme aimed at strengthening control over the Jordan Valley and imposing new faits accomplis on the ground ahead of any potential political changes.
The Ynet news website reported that the new settlements, Bezek and Tamun, will be located on high ground overlooking the Jordan Valley and near what the Israeli army calls the “five-village cluster.”
The move marks the first practical step towards implementing an Israeli cabinet decision from last December, when the government approved the establishment of new settlements as part of what settler leaders have described as a “race against time.”
Ynet said that the first Jewish families are expected to move onto the land as early as this summer to establish the new settlements.
