摘要：Tucked discreetly behind Ben-Gurion International Airport, amidst rows of industrial factories and seemingly endless railway tracks, lies one of Israel's forgotten towns.1Despite recent efforts to revitalize this small city, for its roughly 66,110 residents (20 percent of whom are Palestinian Christians and Muslims), Lyd [Hebrew: Lod; Greek-Latin: Lydda] remains one of the most dangerous, drug addicted, and crime infested cities in the Middle East.2Vestiges of urban neglect are most visible in its Palestinian neighborhoods: Samekh Het, Warda, Shannir, Neve Yarek, and Al-Mahatta. Within these small enclaves, many of the houses and streets are unnamed or unnumbered, well-paved roads are rare, and basic utility services are inconsistent and unreliable. Open sewers and overflowing dumpsters disfigure an urban landscape of derelict and abandoned buildings covered in graffiti.3Within brief pockets of open space, children cordon off the boundaries of imaginary soccer goals with abandoned shopping carts, light poles, benches, and clotheslines of drying laundry. In a cruel and ironic counterpoint, makeshift soccer games intermingle with Lyd's thriving drug trade.
