JERUSALEM – A week ago, the scene began to gradually change at the welders' market in the Old City of Jerusalem, after it was said to have been dying for years. The change followed the restoration and reopening of 16 shops in the market in this sensitive area of the Old City.

The restoration works were carried out by WAFA Foundation for Development and Capacity Building in Palestine with the support of the Kuwait Red Crescent and the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Inside the market, the shopper can see the great difference between the restored shops and those waiting for the second phase of the project to be restored, and he can also see more doors that have opened and the owners have started preparing the goods and finalizing them to reopen.

Al Jazeera Net has met Nasser Qirsh, one of the oldest butchers in the Jerusalem market, where he said that he has been working there since 1972, inheriting this profession from his father, who worked during the British Mandate period.

The shark family bought 3 shops in the welders market in the thirties of the last century, and allocated one of them to sell "falls" (cattle guts) and allocated the others to sell meat of all kinds.

The market has rebounded for decades but its star has faded with the economic crisis that accompanied the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, the strangulation and emptying of the holy city, and the targeting of merchants with taxes and fines to seize their shops.

Some shop owners were forced to close their doors in light of a significant decline in purchasing activity and the urgent need to renovate shops.

Built during the Crusader period (more than 900 years ago) and later restored in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, the market was called the "bad food" market because its owners sold all the internal organs produced by the slaughter of livestock in addition to meat.

Dilapidated shops and selected for restoration forced some owners to abandon (Al Jazeera Net)

It's a dream come true

Nasser Qirsh concluded his speech to Al Jazeera Net by saying that he never dreamed of reopening the shop "fallen" because the complications put by the occupation to restore the shops are many, along with the high cost, pointing out that the status of his shop was so poor that the mice were coming out from among the dust of his floor.

The engineer in charge of restoring the 16 shops, Abdul Rahman Abu Tair, said that the choice of the shops of the welders' market to restore them was not absurd, and came after a field inspection in which it became clear that the shops were dilapidated and some owners were forced to abandon them because of this.

"This market was one of the most crowded antique markets and had to be revived, and the Kuwait Red Crescent answered the call and promised during the opening of the shops a few days ago to restore the next stage," he said.

Advisor to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kuwait Red Crescent, Dr. Musaed Al-Enezi, began his speech to Al Jazeera Net by saying that this initiative came to look for projects that support Palestinians in general and Jerusalemites in particular, and that the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry provided generous support for this initiative.

"The cost of restoring the 16 shops in the welders' market was about $ 300,60, and we aspire to restore more than <> other shops in the same market," Dr. Al-Enezi added.

Returning to the beginning of the initiative and the selection of the commercial sector to carry out the restoration work, Al-Enezi said that they were briefed on the reality of the market and received information indicating the possibility of the occupation authorities seizing its shops, so it was necessary to respond quickly to the call in order to support the steadfastness of Jerusalemite merchants in the face of Israeli measures and reopen their source of livelihood.

Shops that were renovated in the welders market revive the sale movement (Al Jazeera Net)

A road paved with restrictions

The visit of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent delegation to Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque was not furnished with flowers, and Al-Enezi touched on the deployment of the occupation police in the Old City and the disruption of the delegation while trying to reach Al-Aqsa Mosque.

On the nature of donors to the projects of the Kuwait Red Crescent and the Chamber of Commerce, he said that the private sector, Kuwaiti charities and individuals made generous donations, and as soon as the Crescent announced the continuation of the restoration of other shops, many calls were received from Kuwaiti donors who expressed their desire to contribute to the next stages of restoration.

Dr. Al-Anzi concluded his speech to Al Jazeera Net by saying, "In addition to in-kind donations, there is an urgent need to donate in order to restore homes and shops because Jerusalemites suffer from great pressure in order to displace them and Judaize their neighborhoods after seizing real estate illegally."

The engineer supervising the restoration of the welders market inspects the restored shops (Al Jazeera Net)

Muhaisen Atawneh, Director General of WAFAA Foundation for Development and Capacity Building, spoke about the most prominent obstacles that accompanied the restoration of the welders' market shops, most notably the complex procedures imposed by the Israel Antiquities Authority, for which the restoration process was repeatedly postponed to obtain approvals and send observers to the site.

The selection of the shops that were selected for restoration was no less difficult due to the high need in this market, and in the first phase the adjacent shops were selected, resulting in the restoration of an entire section of the market, provided that the rest will be restored during the next stages with funding from the Kuwait Red Crescent and the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The welders market contains 100 shops, all of which specialized in the old sale of meat, but the features of the market began to change gradually and the shops in it no longer specialize in meat only, but some of them turned to sell household items and wool, and others to sell vegetables and fruits, in addition to small popular restaurants.

The Israeli attempts to control the market began in the late eighties of the last century when the occupation army one day fired a barrage of gas bombs inside, which led to the martyrdom of a young Jerusalemite and the injury of others, then the occupation authorities began to intensify the attack on the western part of the market owned by the Lutheran monastery, and took control of the roof of the market and turned part of the buildings located above it into a synagogue.

One of the butcher shops in the welders market (Al Jazeera Net)