Tel Aviv’s Charles Clore Park looks like it was designed for promotional photos, with its picturesque palm trees, evergreen Astroturf and panoramic view of the sea. The beachside expanse has become synonymous with the city’s annual Pride Parade, with over 100,000 people congregating to party there annually.
Yet underneath the park lies the rubble of Manshiya (aka al-Manshiyya), a historic Palestinian neighborhood that was captured in 1948, then turned over to working-class Jewish migrants and eventually demolished in the late 1960s. Its ruins were thrown into the sea and Charles Clore Park was built atop the debris. Only one original structure remains: the Hassan Bek mosque, built in 1914 and now encircled by high-rise hotels.
Ironically, a man instrumental in Manshiya’s destruction also made an effort to preserve its memory. Israeli poet and landscape architect Hillel Omer (known under his pen name, Ayin Hillel) designed the park in 1963 and filmed the neighborhood before its demolition. He documented its stone arches and alleyways, its markets and its children – smiling,
— source Jews For Justice For Palestinians | Nurit Chinn | Dec 16, 2021