Israel advancing plan to build hospital for Jordanian patients in joint industrial park along border

Israel is advancing a plan to develop a hospital on its territory to treat Jordanian patients as part of a joint Israeli-Jordanian industrial park along the border of the two countries, the Emek HaMaayanot regional council head tells The Times of Israel.

“One of the ideas is that [the hospital] might be a center for cancer treatment, so that people from Jordan or further away could come and receive treatment,” says Itamar Matiash, who heads the council in northern Israel that will house the Israeli side of the industrial park.

The park, dubbed the “Jordan Gateway,” will enable Israelis and Jordanians to cross between the sides to work on joint projects. An existing bridge, the Jordan River Crossing, already connects the two sides of the proposed Jordan Gateway zone, near the Israeli city of Beit She’an.

Matiash adds that while the immediate purpose of the bridge and the two zones is to promote cooperation between Israel and Jordan, the site also sits on a key node in the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, the US-backed vision to build a rail and shipping corridor linking those regions.

US representatives, including an official from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s office, will be in Israel next week to view the site, a US official tells The Times of Israel.

First proposed during the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace talks and approved by the government in 2022, plans for the industrial zone stalled in recent years due to mutual lawsuits between the state, the contractor building the bridge, and the regional council, according to Matiash. Over the past year, however, the regional council led a mediation process together with the state and the contractor, during which “the disagreements came to an end, and the project is now getting pushed forward,” he says.

On the Jordanian side, multiple “low-tech factories” aimed at employing Jordanians already exist, Matiash explains, adding that more are being planned. On the Israeli side, the activities are focused on “high-level projects like medical tourism, the potential hospital, academia, innovation hubs, and so on,” he says.

He adds that the Finance Ministry is currently budgeting for a new road into the Israeli zone, in cooperation with the Transportation Ministry and the Ministry for Regional Cooperation. He also says the Israel Land Authority will soon begin work on issuing a tender for a developer to build up the Israeli area.

“What remains for the state is to finalize the security and safety arrangements with the security bodies,” he says.

Regarding security concerns emanating from Jordan, Matiash stresses that the industrial zone will function as an “ex-territorial bubble,” whereby Israelis may cross into the Jordanian industrial area but not into Jordan proper, and Jordanians may cross into the Israeli commercial/medical side but cannot enter Israel beyond the zone.

Full entry into Israel will still need to go via the Allenby Crossing through the West Bank, he says.