Lifta, 2014

Lifta was one of dozens of Palestinian villages around Jerusalem that were forcibly depopulated during Israel's War of Independence in 1948-49. Palestinians refer to this time as the "Nakba", which means catastrophe in Arabic, as it saw the forced migration of over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes.

Today, Lifta is the only Palestinian village near Jerusalem that has not been completely destroyed and erased from the map. Many Jewish Israelis go there to hang out and bathe in an ancient natural spring that used to be the village's water source. Religious Jews preform a ritual washing in the pool and some of the houses are occupied by hermits and settlers. Palestinians are not allowed to return to live in their old homes but they host tours of the village to tell what life was like in the village and how it was depopulated. Lifta is a place where the history of the land is still visible and different layers of time and conflict mix with one another.