LOCAL CULTURE
Taxi is available at Front Desk and upon request.
Taxi Is available at Front Desk Area and upon request.
DID YOU KNOW ?
The Jacir Palace was built between 1910- 1940
Jacir Palace InterContinental Bethlehem is the largest hotel in Bethlehem in the central West Bank. The building's original design was based on typical Palestinian architecture and the characteristics of an Arab household. Jacir Palace has three floors, each spanning 800 square meters. The newly-built hotel added an outdoor swimming pool, a health spa, four meeting rooms, 250 available rooms and six food and beverage outlets including restaurants and bars. Jacir Palace was built in 1910 by local craftsmen on commission of the former mayor of Bethlehem, also a merchant, Suleiman Jacir (great grandfather of Emily and Annemarie Jacir), who intended that he and his five brothers’ families would live in the house together. So they did for a time, however, the family went bankrupt in the 1930s and were forced to abandon the palace as well as sell all the furniture inside. The Jacir family never recovered from this economic devastation. Jacir Palace was eventually taken over by the British who used it as a prison in the 1940s. In the 1950s it was a private school called al-Ummah, later the house became a public boys’ school and at a still later stage was transformed into a public girls’ school. In 1998, PTIC (Palestinian Tourism Investment Company Owned Jacir Palace; they refurnished and renovated it soon after creating Jacir Palace InterContinental Bethlehem.