News

LIFTA — On a rocky slope dropping steeply away from the busy main
road at the entrance to West Jerusalem is to be found a scattering of
ancient stone houses, empty and clinging precariously to terraces hewn
from the hillside centuries ago. Although most
Israeli drivers barely notice the buildings, this small ghost town —
neglected for the past six decades — is at the centre of a legal battle
fuelling nationalist sentiments on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian
divide. Picking his way through the cluster of
55 surviving houses, their stone walls invaded by weeds and shrubs,
Yacoub Odeh, 71, slipped easily into reminiscences about the halcyon
days in Lifta. He was only eight years old in
January 1948 when the advancing Jewish forces put his family and the
3,000 other Palestinian villagers to flight. Over
the coming months, as the Jewish state was born, they would be joined
by 750,000 others forced into exile in an event that is known by
Palestinians as the "nakba", or catastrophe. Despite
the passage of time, Lifta’s chief landmarks are still clear to Mr.
Odeh: the remains of his own family’s home, an olive press, the village
oven, a spring, the mosque, the cemetery and the courtyard where the
villagers once congregated. "Life was wonderful
for a small child here," he said, closing his eyes. "... >>>