BREAKING NEWS

NIS 1 billion development plan approved for Harish

Aiming to see to the relocation of tens of thousands of young families, the cabinet approved on Sunday a NIS 1 billion development plan for the new northern city of Harish.
While today’s Harish contains only about 300 households, the first stage of the plan will enable the construction of about 12,000 housing units, a number that will later be expanded to 24,000, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
About 9,000 apartments have been marketed since the city’s construction began following an initial government decision five years ago, the PMO said.
“A new city has not been established in many years,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This will be a new city along the lines of Modi’in; it will be the beginnings of a city of 50,000 people. I believe that it will grow far beyond this in the future.”
Harish, originally a kibbutz in the 1980s, was approved in 2010 as a largely ultra-Orthodox community, sparking outrage from other groups. Ultimately, the city – located at the edges of a so-called triangle of Arab-Israeli towns – is expected to now include a mixture of secular Jewish, ultra-Orthodox and Arab residents.