Palestinians fear for future of quarries selling famed Jerusalem stone

Despite the catastrophic state of the Palestinian economy, Mr Faraj al Atrash, operator of a quarry in the occupied West Bank, proudly points to an armada of machines busy eating away at the sheer walls of dusty white rock that stretch into the distance.

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"This is considered the main source of revenue for the entire region," Mr Atrash said at the site near the town of Beit Fajjar, close to the city of Hebron.

The quarry is a source of Jerusalem stone, the famed pale rock used throughout the Holy Land and beyond for millennia, giving much of the region its distinctive architectural look.

But Mr Atrash, in his fifties, said "our livelihood is constantly under threat".

"Lately, I feel like the occupation (Israel) has begun to fight us on the economic front," he said.

He fears the confiscation of the quarry's industrial equipment, the expansion of Israeli settlements and the Palestinian financial crisis.

The war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas' October 2023 attack on Israel, dealt a severe blow to a Palestinian economy that was already in poor shape.

The Palestinian territories are "currently going through the most severe economic crisis ever recorded", according to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development presented in late November.

Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967, has recently set up hundreds of new checkpoints across the territory, paralysing commercial transport.