and
Temple Mount of
Jerusalem in the background The neighborhood was established outside
Herod's Gate in the late 19th century when wealthy Arab
Jerusalemite families built summer houses there. The largest and oldest landowning family of Wadi al-Joz were the Khatib family of Jerusalem, which, according to the family's oral history, settled in Jerusalem in the 14th century. They established agricultural estates, mills and fortified summer residences in Wadi al-Joz but remained based in the
Bab al-Hadid neighborhood abutting the
Temple Mount until permanently relocating to Wadi al-Joz in 1926. In the first quarter of the 20th century, the Hidmi family built several houses on the slopes of Wadi al-Joz. In the center of Wadi al-Joz the shanty neighborhood of Jabal Abu Jibna was home to 350 residents, as of the 1990s, mainly from the vicinity of
Sa'ir. In September 2014, a local resident, Muhammad Abd Al-Majid Sunuqrut, 16, was shot during a protest. According to the teen’s father he was shot in the head with a rubber-coated bullet, reportedly, while walking to a mosque for evening prayers but according to the police he was shot in the leg and then fell injuring his head while throwing stones. His father complained of recent harassment, consisting of the use of
skunk spraying, rubber-coated bullets and tear gas, by IDF soldiers. ==Economy==