Givat Amal is one of Tel Aviv’s poorest neighborhoods, despite being situated in one of the city’s wealthier locations. The area has been described as “one of the most sought-after real estate areas” in the country, which is what led to the legal battle that began in 2005 when a development project led by business tycoon Yitzhak Tshuva was first approved for Givat Amal. The company’s plans called for tripling and gentrifying the area’s population by constructing seven luxurious high-rise buildings, and displacing the previously settled Jewish population, many of whom had lived there since the early years after the founding of the state, but without ownership rights. In fact, the last legally recognized residents of the area were the Palestinian Arabs of Al-Jammasin Al-Gharbi, numbering some 1,250 persons in 1948, who were uprooted during the 1948 war and whose rights to return to or be compensated for their abandoned property have been systematically denied by Israel ever since.