Rawabi, a planned city for 40,000 residents, is under construction in the West Bank. The first phase will encompass about 100 residential buildings between five and nine stories tall, ranging from 2,800 to 3,500 square meters, as well as schools and other public and commercial buildings. The 1,557-acre site covers the slope of a hill in Birzeit, a university town located just north of the town of Ramallah in the West Bank and 10 miles north of Jerusalem. “Rawabi” means “the hills” in Arabic.
Earthmoving and road construction began late last year, and construction of the buildings began in June. The pace of activity will pick up when a narrow access road to the site is completed. The contractor is setting up its own on-site concrete batch plant and stone-cutting factory.