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dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/always-my-mind/24976">https://electronicintifada.net/content/always-my-mind/24976</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">"Always on my mind"<br>
</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/anne-paq">Anne
Paq</a></span> <span class="field field-publisher">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-07-26T11:48:00+00:00">26 July 2018</span></span>
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<figure id="file-66451--2"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-07/133a5818.jpg?itok=9R_MkMnU×tamp=1532547699"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>Muhammad Awadallah, 80, near his home in the
village of al-Walaja.</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>There is no choice but to remember.</p>
<p>“I can’t forget the land. It’s always on my mind.
It’s like a mother longing for her son.”</p>
<p>Muhammad Mahmoud Salem Awadallah, 80, was speaking in
the occupied West Bank village of new al-Walaja. It is
located just a few kilometers from the original
al-Walaja village, from where he and all its other
residents were displaced in 1948 by Zionist forces.</p>
<p>Awadallah can still remember the vegetables his
family grew on their land, a time, he said, when “we
had lands and our hearts were open.” And he is
typical, not just of the generations who were
ethnically cleansed, but of those who have come after
him.</p>
<p>There are around 5 million Palestinian refugees
registered with UNRWA, the UN agency set up in 1949
especially to provide for them. <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/badil">Badil</a>,
a Palestinian refugee advocacy group, estimated that
there were almost 8 million Palestinian refugees
worldwide by the end of 2014, among them 720,000
internally displaced persons.</p>
<p>The majority of these refugees, according to Badil,
live within 100 kilometers of their original homes,
yet most cannot visit, let alone return to live. That
is despite how the right of refugees to return to
their homes is a tenet of international humanitarian
law.</p>
<p>Their plight lies at the heart of the Palestinian
issue and, among Palestinians, reverberates down the
generations.</p>
<p>The recent <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return">Great
March of Return</a> series of protests in Gaza
sought to put this issue back front and center of the
Palestinian national struggle.</p>
<p>Most of the protesters marching toward the boundary
between Gaza and Israel, braving sniper fire and
risking their lives, were refugees, but were also too
young to remember the ethnic cleansing of 1948 when
750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced to flee their
homes.</p>
<p>For those who remember, the pain is still vivid.</p>
<p>“With your questions, you are opening the wounds
again,” said Yacoub Ahmad Odeh, a refugee from <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/lifta">Lifta</a>,
a village in the Jerusalem area.</p>
<p>Odeh is the head of the Committee to Protect Lifta
Heritage and Culture and has organized more than 40
tours to his Lifta for young people from around the
world. These outsiders can visit, unlike Palestinians
in the occupied West Bank, at the mercy of Israel’s
permit system, locked away behind checkpoints or who
are simply too poor to afford the cost of travel.</p>
<p>In addition, many of the Palestinian villages that
were depopulated in 1948 were destroyed afterwards to
leave no place to return and no reference for memory.
In some places, only piles of stones and cacti remain
as testimonies to a life that was abruptly interrupted
by the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nakba">Nakba</a>,
the catastrophe, of 1948.</p>
<p>Israel has used other strategies to fade memories, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-criminalizes-commemoration-nakba/9289">adopting
legislation</a> criminalizing the commemoration of
the Nakba, or covering the ruins of Palestinian
villages with pine tree forests.</p>
<p>But the right of return is far from disappearing from
refugees’ minds.</p>
<p>This photo essay attempts to make visible the
connection between Palestinian refugees and their
places of origin by displaying the names of refugees
in Arabic in the location of their villages of origin.
The names were written by Afnan Zboun, a 14-year-old
who lives in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-azzeh-refugee-camp">al-Azzeh
refugee camp</a>.</p>
<p><em>Anne Paq is a French freelance photographer and
member of the photography collective <a
href="http://activestills.org/">ActiveStills</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Umar al-Ghubari contributed research.</em></p>
<figure id="file-66431--2"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-07/abumajed_1_copy.jpg?itok=lWxXGIle×tamp=1532547699"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>Abdelhamid Ahmad Ibrahim Abu Srour</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p><em>Abdelhamid Ahmad Ibrahim Abu Srour is originally
from <a
href="http://www.palestineremembered.com/Hebron/Bayt-Nattif/">Beit
Natif</a>. He now lives in the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/aida-refugee-camp">Aida
refugee camp</a>, in the West Bank city of
Bethlehem, where he has had a grocery shop for 40
years and still works there. He keeps the key to his
father’s home in Beit Natif. He is, he said,
“around” 85 in age.</em></p>
<p><em>Approximate distance to his original village: 25
kilometers.</em></p>
<p>I went back to see Beit Natif after 1967. Everything
was destroyed.</p>
<p>We were happy. Everyone owned their land. We were
living with Christians and Jews like brothers.</p>
<p>My father was a farmer. We got everything from our
own land – wheat, beans, vegetables.</p>
<p>Each family had 30 to 60 <em>dunums</em> [a <em>dunum</em>
is 1,000 square meters]. But we lived like one big
family, and we did everything together. If we saw a
car in the village, we would follow it, it was
something so new.</p>
<figure id="file-66446--2"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-07/133a6826.jpg?itok=46NObSja×tamp=1532547699"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>Beit Shemesh, a city in present-day Israel that
is partly built on the land of Beit Natif village,
is expanding toward the ruins of Beit Natif. Earth
dug for construction is being put on top of some
of the old stones from the destroyed village.</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>We did not have radio or TV. I did not go to school
there. We were busy with the land. It was a simple
life.</p>
<p>When the Zionist soldiers started shooting at us, we
left. We were scared. We left in the middle of the
night with nothing.</p>
<p>We walked towards Wadi Fukin, went on top of the
mountains and saw people being killed. We stayed in
the mountains for two months, sleeping on the ground.
Once we sneaked into our lands before the Jordanians
told us to leave.</p>
<p>Later, we went to Aida refugee camp and stayed in a
big tent for three months shared with seven families.
Then we got a small tent for a couple of years.</p>
<p>We’ve been occupied by many. In the end we will get
our freedom.</p>
<figure id="file-66426--2"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-07/halima_walaja_2.jpg?itok=qoM-_bWK×tamp=1532547699"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
Halima Ali Khalil</figcaption></figure>
<p><em>Halima Ali Khalil, 78, is from <a
href="http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/al-Walaja/index.html">al-Walaja</a>
village, and currently lives in the new al-Walaja,
which was built by fleeing refugees in what became a
Jordanian-controlled area and what is now the
occupied West Bank. When we approached the nearby
Ein al-Balad spring to take photographs, there were
some Israelis swimming there. After they heard the
purpose of the photo project, they told our guide,
who works for <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/zochrot">Zochrot</a>,
an Israeli organization dedicated to the memory of
the Nakba: “Your work is useless, they
[Palestinians] will never return here.”</em></p>
<p><em>Distance to her original village: 4 kilometers.</em></p>
<p>My nephew took me once to Ein al-Balad. I saw the
Israelis swimming. I was crying. I was also worried
because I was afraid they would beat us. They had big
dogs.</p>
<p>We had a big house, made of stones, near Ein
al-Balad. We had three rooms for the people and two
for the animals over two floors.</p>
<p>We had many trees: apricot trees, apple trees, olive
trees, grapes. Life was the best.</p>
<p>There were 16 springs in al-Walaja. My father was a
farmer.</p>
<p>We cultivated everything around the spring,
vegetables and fruits, and we would sell in Jerusalem
all the way to Jaffa. We used to take the train.</p>
<p>There was no school for us [girls], only the boys
could go. I would go with my father to the fields. We
played outside a lot. We built a castle and played
hide and seek.</p>
<p>My family had 150 <em>dunums</em> in different
locations – like 50 <em>dunums</em> in <a
href="http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/Ras-Abu-%27Ammar/index.html">Ras
Abu Ammar</a> that my father bought just before we
left.</p>
<figure id="file-66436--2"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-07/133a6764.jpg?itok=qjkMjqeK×tamp=1532547699"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>A view of the new village of al-Walaja from the
opposite hill. A newly constructed barbed-wire
fence, several meters high, separates residents
from their agricultural lands. When completed,
this structure, part of Israel’s wall in the West
Bank, will totally surround the village and will
likely force many to leave.</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>In 1948, the Zionists were at the <a
href="http://www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Battir_7295/Article_19849.html">Battir
station</a>. They shot at us. We fled and took only
small things we could carry.</p>
<p>My father hid the new crops. On the night the
militias came, some men fought back and five or six
were killed.</p>
<p>The Zionists destroyed our house. A few days later,
we saw it from the mountains. We cried.</p>
<p>After one year we came back to the mountain and
started to dig. We were living in caves and then we
made houses of mud.</p>
<p>My father was always talking about al-Walaja. He died
not long after we fled.</p>
<p>He was so sad that they took the land. He was going
back in secret to the old al-Walaja to take care of
the trees and always hoped to go back.</p>
<p>After 1967, we went back to take some crops and some
herbs. We used to go to Ein Hanyia but now we can’t go
at all. With the building of the wall, we also lost 10
<em>dunums</em>.</p>
<p>God willing, we will go back. I still cry over our
land. Hopefully we will go back and Palestine will be
free, and all people will be united.</p>
<figure id="file-66421--2"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-07/mohammadwalaja_3.jpg?itok=NRUItpuJ×tamp=1532547699"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>Muhammad Mahmoud Salem Awadallah</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p><em>Muhammad Mahmoud Salem Awadallah, 80, is from
al-Walaja and currently lives in the new village,
just a few meters away from the Israeli wall. From
an old photo found on the internet, taken just after
the Zionist troops took control of the village, he
could identify his home, up in the mountain.</em></p>
<p><em>Approximate distance to his original village: 3
kilometers.</em></p>
<p>We had so many vegetables, herbs, fruits: parsley,
mint, cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, cherries,
apricots, peaches. So many.</p>
<p>We lived near Ein Balad spring. My father was a
farmer. Our home had two floors. Downstairs was for
the animals. Upstairs there were four rooms for us.</p>
<p>We had many sheep, and a lot of land around Ein
Haniya spring and Ein Balad, between 60 and 80 <em>dunums</em>.
My father would sell to Jerusalem and Jaffa.</p>
<p>There were Jewish neighbors in [the nearby village
of] Malha. They were like friends then. But after
Israel was created, nothing was good.</p>
<p>We had lands and open hearts. I went to school for a
year and a half.</p>
<p>I was around 8 when the Nakba happened. It was a
quiet night and then suddenly there were bullets.</p>
<p>We ran away to the mountains. We left under a rain of
bullets. In the chaos, we could not take anything.</p>
<p>After some days some came back, sneaking into the
village. My grandmother, Mahbouba Ali Sabha, was shot
in the shoulder when she sneaked there to look for our
animals.</p>
<p>We stayed here, exactly at this location, under the
trees for a couple of years. Then we built a house of
mud.</p>
<p>Three years after the Nakba, they demolished our
houses to say to us: you don’t have a home to go back
to. But even if they destroyed our village, my
children, my grandchildren will go back and rebuild
it.</p>
<p>I always have the land on my mind. It’s like a mother
longing for her son.</p>
<figure id="file-66416--2"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-07/yacoub_lifta_4.jpg?itok=PAIECOW5×tamp=1532547699"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>Yacoub Ahmad Odeh</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p><em>Yacoub Ahmad Odeh, 78, is originally from <a
href="http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/Lifta/">Lifta</a>.
He now lives in the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/sheikh-jarrah">Sheikh
Jarrah</a> neighborhood of occupied East
Jerusalem. Here he is holding a family tree of
people from Lifta.</em></p>
<p><em>Odeh is the head of the Committee to Protect
Lifta Heritage and Culture, and has been a human
rights activist for 33 years. He spent 17 years in
Israeli jail for his political activism, and was
released during a prisoner exchange deal in 1985.</em></p>
<p><em>The village of Lifta is one of the only
Palestinian villages attacked in 1948 where there
are still dozens of old homes standing that are not
now inhabited by new Jewish residents.</em></p>
<p><em>Distance to his original village: 4 kilometers.</em></p>
<p>The first time I went back to Lifta was maybe three
weeks after 1967 [the June 1967 war]. I remember a
Jewish man on a horse came and said: “I forbid you to
visit Lifta.”</p>
<p>The next day I came with my mother. She started to
cry when she saw her childhood home.</p>
<p>We also saw the house where I was born. There were
some holes in the ceiling.</p>
<p>It fell down in 1983 or 1984 with the snow. Now there
are just some walls that are standing. My mother fell
sick after that first visit.</p>
<p>Life in Lifta was beautiful. We lived very close to
the spring. As a child I was always swimming and
diving there.</p>
<p>I’d bring home water. We’d play around the spring
with my cousins and all the children of the
neighborhood. We’d climb trees, eat their figs.</p>
<p>I remember the smell of the taboun bakery where my
mother would take me. It was so delicious, the taboun
bread, with zeit and zataar [olive oil and a thyme
mixture]. I can still smell it.</p>
<p>My family worked the land. My father and mother were
farmers. We were seven in all.</p>
<figure id="file-66441--2"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2018-07/133a6770.jpg?itok=NeWy0N0T×tamp=1532547699"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>A general view of some of the old houses of Lifta
today.</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>Our house was built from large stones. We had a lot
of fruit and land. That is where the Ramot colony is
now.</p>
<p>We had apricots, olive trees, and so on. People
helped each other. That was part of the Lifta culture.</p>
<p>If someone needed to repair the roof, everybody would
come to help. We were like a big family.</p>
<p>The Zionist gangs started to attack in 1947. Lifta is
the western gate of Jerusalem, at a very strategic
location. They wanted to take control of the road from
Jerusalem to Jaffa to secure movement.</p>
<p>On 28 December 1947, the village coffee shop was
attacked and sprayed with bullets. Six people were
killed.</p>
<p>People came down from the upper part of the village,
the women were crying and people prayed by the yard
near the spring.</p>
<p>After the gang took control of the upper part they
controlled the village. The villagers had to use small
bypass roads. But every day, the military presence
became stronger.</p>
<p>One day, my father came and carried my little sister
and called me and my brother and we followed him. We
went down to the valley and climbed up to the main
street. My father was shot at but the bullet landed
between his legs. We went into a truck.</p>
<p>We went from Latrun to Beitunia, and then to al-Bireh
[near the West Bank city of Ramallah]. In one hour we
became refugees.</p>
<p>It was a very miserable life. We were kings before
and suddenly we were beggars.</p>
<p>My father went back to fight. But when he returned,
he was so sad. He found us in a miserable situation
and could not take it.</p>
<p>He became sick. His stomach did not take the food. He
was nervous. After a year and a half, he died.</p>
<p>We lost everything. We lost our dignity. These things
shaped my memory and my life.</p>
<p>We moved to Jerusalem to be closer to Lifta. After
prison, I got involved in the campaign against plans
to build luxury villas in Lifta. We went to the court.</p>
<p>The Coalition to Save Lifta is international and is
big now. We make surveys, books, videos, and we
mobilize the media. Between 2011 and 2016 I did 45
tours of Lifta for university groups coming from 25
countries.</p>
<p>I don’t lose hope. I dream to go back. I am sure the
time will come. The sun will rise again.</p>
<p>The Israelis did not study history. All occupiers go.
We can live together but we should put an end to the
occupation, and create a democratic state for all
under democratic laws.</p>
<p>Israelis say the new generations will forget. I did
not forget. Now I am a father. I send the message to
my daughter and my son. We used to go, four or five
times a year, to teach them that this is your village,
this is your mosque, and so on.</p>
<p>I taught them and they continue. This is my memory
and my history. Nobody has the right to take them
away.</p>
<br>
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