The Bay of Haifa or Haifa Bay (Hebrew : מפרץ חיפה, Mifratz Heifa), formerly Bay of Acre, [1] is a bay along the Mediterranean coast of Northern Israel. Haifa Bay is Israel's only natural harbor on the Mediterranean.
Haifa Bay also refers one of Haifa's nine quarters, covering the overwhelmingly industrial area northeast of Downtown and south of Kiryat Hayim.
Fed by the Kishon River, the cities of Haifa and Acre mark its southern and northern capes, while its centre is lined with dunes and the suburban Krayot neighbourhoods. Mount Carmel rises from the southern edge, while the mountains of the Western Galilee run up to the shore at the northern boundary. The Zvulun Valley, a coastal plain, runs 14 km along the coast of the bay between these mountainous boundaries.
The Port of Haifa lies along part of its southeastern coastline.
In the 1920s, several kibbutzim were established in the Bat Galim neighborhood on Haifa Bay in the wake of British Mandatory budgeting for development of the area. [2] With the coast of Palestine lacking a modern harbor, the British authorities drew up plans for new port facilities. The Haifa Bay Development Company, founded in February 1925 to further these plans, could not recruit the necessary capital, so the transaction was made by the Palestine Land Development Company.
The area was acquired by the Jewish community as part of the Sursock Purchase. The land was purchased from the Sursock family, which had bought it from the Ottoman government in 1872. The 45,000 dunam tract was known as the Jidro lands. The company also acquired a 99-year concession for an additional 12,000 dunams of adjoining land, bringing the total area to 57,000. [3] The land changed hands several times due to financial difficulties, eventually becoming the property of the Bayside Land Company, established in cooperation with the Jewish National Fund. In 1928, the company commissioned Patrick Abercrombie to draw up a development plan. [4]
In 1934, the Phoenicia glass factory was established in Haifa Bay. The company moved to Yeruham in 1968, and is still operating today. [5]
The Port of Haifa and a private port operated by Israel Shipyards are located in Haifa Bay. In 2017 they handled a combined total of 32 million tons of cargo, making the port complex one of the largest in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Bay region is also home to an extensive industrial zone containing various factories, workshops, large shore-based oil refineries, chemical, metals fabrication and power plants and other industrial and storage facilities. The 76-meter high twin cooling towers of the Haifa oil refinery are a nationally recognized icon for the city. For this reason, they have been left intact, though they are no longer actually used since technological advancements in refining have made them obsolete.
Historically the concentration of industry in the area has also led to pollution of the air and the bay, and a higher incidence of cancer in the surrounding communities. [6] In response, since the late 2000s the Israeli Environment Protection ministry, in conjunction with area industries, has implemented a comprehensive pollution reduction, monitoring and reporting programme for the region. This effort, together with the practice by major plants in the region of switching from using heavy fuels to natural gas as their primary fuel source, starting in 2013, has led to a significant reduction in air pollution. [7] The ministry estimates that between 2009 and 2014 overall air pollution in the Bay area has been reduced by 70%, although the overall concentration of heavy industry in the area means that air pollution is still higher as compared with other regions in Israel. [8]
Haifa is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of 290,306 in 2022. The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area in Israel. It is home to the Baháʼí Faith's Baháʼí World Centre, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a destination for Baháʼí pilgrimage.
Ashdod is the sixth-largest city in Israel. Located in the country's Southern District, it lies on the Mediterranean coast 32 kilometres south of Tel Aviv and 20 km (12 mi) north of Ashkelon. Ashdod's port is the largest in Israel, handling 60% of the country's imported goods.
Kiryat Yam is a city in the Haifa Bay district of Israel, 12 km (7 mi) north of Haifa. One of a group of Haifa suburbs known as the Krayot, it is located on the Mediterranean coast, between Kiryat Haim and the Tzur Shalom industrial area, east of Kiryat Motzkin. In 2022 it had a population of 41,095.
Afula is a city in the Northern District of Israel, often known as the "Capital of the Valley" due to its strategic location in the Jezreel Valley. As of 2022, the city had a population of 61,519.
Kiryat Ata is a city in the Haifa District of Israel. In 2022 it had a population of 61,142, 92% of whom were Jewish citizens.
The Kishon River is a river in Israel that flows into the Mediterranean Sea near the city of Haifa.
Kiryat Tiv'on is a town in the Haifa District of Israel, in the hills between the Zvulun (Zebulon) and Jezreel valleys. Kiryat Tiv'on is located 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) southeast of Haifa, on the main road to Nazareth. Kiryat Tiv'on is the result of the municipal merger of several older settlements, Tiv'on, Elro'i, Kiryat Haroshet and Kiryat Amal. On the outskirts of Tiv'on is a Bedouin township called Basmat Tab'un. In 2022 it had a population of 19,130.
Yehoshua Hankin was a Zionist activist who was responsible for most of the major land purchases of the Zionist Organization in Ottoman Palestine and Mandatory Palestine – in particular for the Sursock Purchase.
The Port of Haifa is the largest of Israel's three major international seaports, the others being the Port of Ashdod, and the Port of Eilat. Its natural deep-water harbor operates all year long and serves both passenger and merchant ships. It is one of the largest ports in the eastern Mediterranean in terms of freight volume and handles about 30 million tons of cargo per year. The port employs over 1,000 people, rising to 5,000 when cruise ships dock in Haifa. The Port of Haifa lies north of Haifa's downtown quarter on the Mediterranean and stretches to some three kilometres along the city's central shore with activities ranging from military, industrial, and commercial next to a nowadays-smaller passenger cruising facility.
Atarot was a moshav in Mandatory Palestine, north of Jerusalem along the highway to Ramallah. It was named after the biblical Atarot mentioned in Joshua 16:2, which is believed to have been situated nearby. The moshav was captured and destroyed by the Jordanian Arab Legion during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Atarot Airport, closed since the Second Intifada, and Jerusalem's largest industrial park are now located there.
The Sursock family is a Greek Orthodox Christian family from Lebanon, and used to be one of the most important families of Beirut. Having originated in Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire, the family has lived in Beirut since 1712, when their forefather Jabbour Aoun left the village of Berbara. After the turn of the 19th century, they began to establish significant positions of power within the Ottoman Empire. The family, through lucrative business ventures, savvy political maneuvering, and strategic marriages, embarked on what Leila Fawaz called "the most spectacular social climb of the nineteenth century," and, at their peak, had built a close network of relations to the families of Egyptian, French, Irish, Russian, Italian and German aristocracies, alongside a manufacturing and distribution empire spanning the Mediterranean.
The Haifa Subdistrict was one of the subdistricts of Mandatory Palestine. It covered the northern Mediterranean coast of regional Palestine, southwestern Galilee, and the Wadi Ara region. It was disintegrated after the British withdrawal from the area. Prior to and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War around half of the Arab localities were depopulated or destroyed. The entire district was captured by Israel and most of its Arab defenders were composed of the Arab Liberation Army and local militias.
Kfar Yehoshua is a moshav in northern Israel. Located between Haifa and Nazareth, it falls under the jurisdiction of Jezreel Valley Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 1,251.
Yokneam is a moshava in the Northern District of Israel. Located on the outskirts of the city of Yokneam Illit on the border of the Jezreel Valley and the Menashe Heights, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Megiddo Regional Council and is administrated by a local committee which is elected every five years. In 2022 it had a population of 1,382.
BAZAN Group,, formerly Oil Refineries Ltd., is an oil refining and petrochemicals company located in Haifa Bay, Israel. It operates the largest oil refinery in the country. ORL has a total oil refining capacity of approximately 9.8 million tons of crude oil per year with a Nelson complexity index of 9. ORL provides a variety of products used in industrial operations, agriculture and transportation. ORL is Israel's largest integrated refining and petrochemical facility. The company also provides storage and transportation services for oil fuel products, as well as electricity and steam to industrial customers in the region.
Ashdod Refinery Ltd. situated in the coastal city of Ashdod is the second largest oil refinery in Israel. It is located in the industrial zone in the northern part of the city, nearby the Port of Ashdod. As of 2014, it has an annual refining capacity of 5.4 million tons of oil, with a Nelson complexity index of 9.8.
This is a timeline of intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine.
Economy of Mandatory Palestine refers to the economy and financial development of the British Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948.
Gav-Yam, sometimes referred to as Bayside Land Corporation in English, is an Israeli real estate company.
The Sursock Purchases were land purchases made by Jewish organizations from the absentee landowning Lebanese Greek Orthodox Christian Sursock family, mainly from 1901 to 1925. These included the Jezreel Valley and Haifa Bay, as well as other lands in what became the Mandate for Palestine. These collectively formed the largest Jewish land purchase in Palestine during the period of early Jewish immigration.
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