Al Walaja, Assorted Writings & Planning

Contemporary al-Walaja is a scarred and fragmented outcome of approximately 700 years of prosperity, disrupted by 150 years of dispossession, violence, and oppressive legislation—intensifying significantly over the past 15 years. In response to this recent history, the village residents initiated the local outline plan “Ein al-Juweiza 12062,” which, for the first time, aims to grant them planning rights and the ability to live with dignity. Following a petition to the High Court of Justice, the plan is currently under review by the District Planning Committee. The project seeks to bring together the contexts, fragments of life, and resonances of voices from a long and rich history, proposing a critical mass of architecture as a precondition for building coalitions, shared imagination, and present-day resistance, enabling the possibility of a new form of citizenship in the future. The project led by Arc. Ytav Bouhsira and Arc. Gil David