The Presidential Palace planned to be built near Ramallah, in a computer-generated image on the website of PECDAR, the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction. (Screen capture)
A Palestinian Authority official said Sunday that a lavish presidential palace being built outside of Ramallah would be converted into a national library.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, said the decision to turn the complex into a library was made by Abbas, according to the official Wafa news agency.
The complex, which critics said was being built as a personal residence for Abbas, was also slated to serve as a guesthouse for foreign dignitaries, Shtayyeh said.
He added that while construction on the palace itself was complete, work was still being done on the compound’s helipads.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank city of Ramallah, July 25, 2017. (AFP/Abbas Momani)
While the presidential palace raised eyebrows over its high price tag, PA officials told the Haaretz daily in 2015 that the facility was being funded by international donors and Palestinian firms, not taxpayers.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
The decision to go ahead with construction on the 27-dunam (6.67-acre) compound was made despite the PA’s financial woes.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
