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Jisr az-Zarqa ג'סר א-זרקא جـِسـْر الزرقاء Jisr Zarka
Jisr az-Zarqa Location within Israel
Coordinates: 32°32′N 34°54′E / 32.533, 34.9
Area
- Total	1.5 km² (0.6 sq mi)
Population (2005)
- Total	11,100

Jisr az-Zarqa (Arabic: جـِسـْر الزرقاء, Hebrew: ג'סר א-זרקא‎ lit. bridge over the blue [stream]) is an Israeli Arab local council on Israel's northern Mediterranean coastal plain. Located just north of Caesarea within the Haifa District, it achieved local council status in 1963. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) the town had a population of 11,100 residents at the end of 2005. Its name refers to the Taninim stream, which is known in Arabic as 'the blue [stream].'

Jisr az-Zarqa is the only Arab town in Israel that is located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (though there are coastal towns such as Acre, Haifa, and Jaffa with significant Arab populations). Other Arab towns located along the coast were depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War during a large Israeli offensive called Coastal Clearing. However, the intervention of Jews from the neighboring towns of Zikhron Ya'aqov and Binyamina, who relied on the population of Jisr az-Zarqa and nearby Fureidis for agricultural labor, prevented the Israeli authorities from dispersing the Arab populations there.^[1]

The inhabitants of Jisr az-Zarqa are primarily Muslim, although there is a Christian minority. The town has the lowest average monthly wage of any locality in Israel at 3,800 New Israeli Sheqel (NIS), or less than 1,000 USD.^[2] According the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Jisr az-Zarqa also has the highest high school drop out rates in the country at 12%.^[3][4]

Several events involving the village's residents highlight tensions surrounding its place in wider Israeli society:

• In 1998, the first multiple kidney transplant in Israel took place between a couple from the village and a Jewish couple from Jerusalem.^[5]
• A Jewish motorist killed after a stone was thrown at his vehicle as he drove on the Haifa-Tel Aviv freeway near Jisr az-Zarqa and is generally considered the first Israeli fatality in the al-Aqsa Intifada. Four youths from the village were initially arrested, but for lack of evidence three were released, and one subject to house arrest.^[6][7]
• In the course of the Intifada, a 41 year old Arab resident was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in Afula.^[7]

In November 2002, the Caesarea Development Corporation began constructing a large earthen embankment running the length of the 160 meter-wide corridor between the village and neighboring Caesarea, among Israel's most exclusive and wealthiest towns. The construction was undertaken without informing the Jisr az-Zarqa municipal council. The reason provided by the Caesarea Development Company for the construction of the barrier is acoustical; i.e., blocking out noise from the muezzin, celebratory gunfire, etc.^[8] Other explanations given have been the frequent thefts by village residents and the preservation of property values in Caesarea, which were being affected by its proximity to poverty-stricken and crime-ridden Jisr az-Zarqa.^[9][7]

The residents of Jisr az-Zarqa refer to the 4 to 5 meter high and 1-1.5km long embankment as "the racist barrier." They claim that with a national park located to the north, the embankment to the south, a highway to the east and the sea to the west, that there is no room for their town to develop, and that it is effectively cut off from the surrounding areas.^[9]

1. ^ http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8205/8205.ch05.html
2. ^ "Settlers earn double the minimum wage and more than the average wage", translated by AAD from <http://www.hagada.org.il/hagada/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3819>, 2006, 24 August. 
3. ^ "Jisr al-Zarqa, J'lem, Eilat have highest high school dropout rates", Haaretz, 2006, 8 September. 
4. ^ "Equal opportunity? Not in our school", Haaretz, 2006, 27 September. 
5. ^ "An Israeli and an Arab showing the way", ArabicNews.com, 1998, 13 May. 
6. ^ http://www.arabhra.org/publications/wrap/2000/wrap14.htm
7. ^ ^{a b c} "The other victims", Haaretz, 2003, 27 June. 
8. ^ http://www.caesarea.org.il/template_e/default.asp?maincat=12&catid=53&pageId=187&id_site=9
9. ^ ^{a b} http://friendvill1203.homestead.com/Long.html

• Benny Morris (1994): "1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians" ISBN 0-19-827929-9. (Chapter 8, p. 257-289: The Case of Abu Ghosh and Beit Naqquba, Al Fureidis and Jisr Zarka in 1948 -or Why Four Villages Remained.)

v • d • e  Haifa District
Cities	Baqa-Jatt | Carmel City | Hadera | Haifa | Kiryat Atta | Kiryat Bialik | Kiryat Motzkin | Kiryat Yam | Nesher | Or Akiva | Tirat Carmel | Umm al-Fahm
Local councils	Ar'ara | Basma | Binyamina-Giv'at Ada | Jisr az-Zarqa | Kafr Qara | Ma'ale Iron | Pardes Hanna-Karkur | Fureidis | Kiryat Tiv'on | Rekhasim | Zikhron Ya'aqov
Regional councils	Alona | Hof Karmel | Menashe | Zevulun

Coordinates: 32°32′N, 34°54′E