A Palestinian village of Lifta was one of about 400 historic Arab towns and villages recorded in Biblical times and in use before 1948. A mosque and dozens of stone homes, vacant since1948, were threatened by property developers who wished to demolish the historic site. A court in Jerusalem on February 6, 2012, ruled against the the Israel Lands Authority’s bid to sell the ancient village and found that demolition of this site would be counter to the “sound conservation studies.”