Lifta

Lifta (Arabic: لفتا; Hebrew: ליפתא) was a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The village's Palestinian Arab inhabitants were expelled by Zionist paramilitary forces during the 1948 Palestine war.

During the Ottoman period, the village was recorded to have a population of 400 Arabs, all Muslim households. In 1834, a battle took place in the village during the Palestinian Peasants' Revolt. A British 1922 census registered Lifta's population at 1,451, all Muslims.

Prior to 1948, the village had orchards, several olive presses, a winepress, in addition to a modern clinic, two coffeehouses, two carpentry shops, barbershops, a butcher, and a mosque. In the 1945 statistics the population of Lifta was 2,250; 2,230 Muslims and 20 Christians. In addition, a small number of Jews resided in the village, and one former Jewish inhabitant described the relationship her family and the Palestinian Arab majority as 'excellent'.

During the 1948 Palestine war, a massacre occurred on 28 December 1947, when a Jewish militia launched a machine-gun and grenade assault on a cafe in Lifa. The mukhtar's home was also incinerated by the Zionist forces and 20 buildings were blown up as the village was put under siege. The village's Palestinian Arab inhabitants were expelled, and the abandoned village was later repopulated by Jewish immigrants until the 1970s. In July 2017, Israel declared Lifta (called Mei Neftoach) as a national nature reserve. It has been referred to as the "Palestinian Pompeii".

A perennial spring located in the channel's upper section is believed to be the site where the village first developed. Surrounding this spring, artifacts including a burial cave and pottery shards from the Middle Bronze Age II and Iron Age II periods were uncovered.

Archaeological remains dating as far back as Iron Age II have been found in the village.

The site is considered by some to be identical with biblical Hebrew: מי נפתוח Mei Neftoach. It was populated since ancient times; "Nephtoah" (Hebrew: נפתח, lit. spring of the corridor) is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the border between the Israelite tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and was the northernmost demarcation point of the territory of the Tribe of Judah. Other scholars hold the identification to be plausible but by no means certain. Kitchener and Conder found the identification with Nephtoah unsatisfactory, and preferred to identify Lifta with Eleph of Benjamin (Joshua 18:28).

The Romans and Byzantines called it Nephtho, and the Crusaders referred to it as Clepsta.