Palestinian 'Pompeii' in Jerusalem Could Face Demolition

Found this to be an interesting story.

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JERUSALEM — A 10-minute walk from the bustle of Jerusalem's central bus station, Lifta's crumbling remains are a sanctuary of silence.

Residents of the former Palestinian village on the western edge of the city fled during the war surrounding Israel's independence in 1948, and today it is one of the few depopulated Palestinian villages that was neither demolished nor re-inhabited. Now, the overgrown skeletons of buildings face a new threat: luxury apartments. Opponents want to preserve the town as an historic site.

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But in 2011 a redevelopment plan was advanced to bulldoze the village ruins and the nature reserve— which today are part of one of the largest undeveloped tracts of land in the Jerusalem municipal area — into luxury residences, a hotel and shops. A group of Israeli and Palestinian activists, including descendants of the village's former inhabitants, pushed back against the plan, arguing Lifta should be preserved as a living monument.

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This month, the World Monuments Fund, a U.S.-based nonprofit working to conserve heritage sites around the globe, added Lifta to its watch list, warning that the redevelopment plan endangers the preservation of the site as "a rare place of heritage, recreation, and memory for the benefit of all citizens of Jerusalem."


More: http://us.pressfrom.com/news/world/-97216-palestinian-pompeii-in-jerusalem-could-face-demolition/

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