Lifta 3.44

Lifta was a Palestinian Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The population was driven out during the early part of the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. Following the war, it was settled by Jewish families, who subsequently mostly left in 1969-71, following which parts of the village were used as drug rehabilitation clinic and a high school. It is located on a hillside between the western entrance to Jerusalem and the Romema neighbourhood. In 2012, plans to rebuild the village as an upscale neighborhood were rejected by the Jerusalem District Court. In 2017 the last Jewish residents left Lifta, and the village area is now an Israeli nature reserve.HistoryAntiquityThe site was populated since ancient times; "Nephtoah" is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the border between the Israelite tribes of Judah and Benjamin. It was the northernmost demarcation point of the territory of the Tribe of Judah.Archaeological remains dating as far back as the Second Iron Age have been found in the village.The Romans and Byzantines called it Nephtho, and the Crusaders referred to it as Clepsta. The remains of a court-yard home from the Crusader period remains in the centre of the village.