Development town

Development towns (Hebrew: עיירת פיתוח, Ayarat Pitu'ah) were new settlements built in Israel during the 1950s in order to provide permanent housing for a large influx of Jews who fled or migrated from Arab and Muslim countries and Holocaust survivors from Europe who arrived to the newly established State of Israel.

The towns were designed to expand the population of the country's peripheral areas while easing pressure on the crowded centre. Most of them were built in the Galilee in the north of Israel, and in the northern Negev desert in the south. In addition to the new towns, Jerusalem was also given development town status in the 1960s.

In the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict, Jews who fled or migrated from Arab and Muslim countries were initially resettled in ma'abarot (Hebrew: מעברת, lit.'transit (camps)') or immigrant and refugee transit camps, also sometimes called absorption camps, known variously as transit immigrant camps, transit refugee camps, and development towns. Development towns were subsequently considered by some to be places of relegation and marginalisation.