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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-yalu-exiles-will-return-nakba">middleeasteye.net</a>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">My Yalu story: One day, exiles will return to the village Israel destroyed</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Hanna Alshaikh - August 13, 2021<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>There
was an unexpected knock on the door of my grandfather’s home in Amman
at around 11pm, as I was packing my bags ahead of a flight back to
Chicago the next day.</p>
<p>A neighbour and member of the Yalu community association had come to
deliver a book. Having heard that my grandfather, known throughout the
Palestinian village as Abu Hussein, had a granddaughter visiting from
the US who wanted to learn more about Yalu's past, he insisted that I
have a copy of this book before my departure.</p>
<p>I was moved by this man’s generosity and by this text, which holds a
great deal of sentimental and political significance to my family and to
the people of Yalu. The book in question was Ribhi Alayan’s <a href="https://www.almadenahnews.com/article/230271-%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%83%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%AD%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B7%D9%81%D9%89-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%86" target="_blank"><i>So That We Do Not Forget: Yalu, the Destroyed Palestinian Village</i>. </a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Today, more than five decades later, amid a conversation on the
destruction of Palestinian villages and loss of life, my grandfather
still smiles when he recalls the beauty of Yalu</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 1967, Israel <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/Pages_from_JQ_69_-_Mundinger_0.pdf" target="_blank">ethnically cleansed</a>
our village, Yalu. Residents of the town comprised part of the
approximately 300,000 Palestinians who were made refugees by Israel <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/1967" target="_blank">in the 1967 war</a>, known as the Naksa or “setback” to Arabs and Palestinians. But unlike many other colonised Palestinian lands, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank">Israel</a>
never replaced the people of Yalu with settlers. As an apparent act of
revenge for local resistance in the 1948 war, Israel decided to <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/Pages_from_JQ_69_-_Mundinger_0.pdf" target="_blank">keep the land empty</a>, epitomising the racist logic of Zionism that views Palestinian life as a threat.</p>
<p>In 1975, the Canadian Jewish National Fund turned Yalu and two neighbouring villages into <a href="https://www.kkl-jnf.org/tourism-and-recreation/forests-and-parks/ayalon-canada-park.aspx" target="_blank">Canada Park</a>,
which Israel now cites as an example of its commitment to
environmentalism. But for the Palestinians who were violently removed
from the homes now buried under this park, it is a symbol of the
destruction of Palestinian trees, crops, homes and lives.</p>
<p>Our story disproves the myths perpetuated by Israel to justify its
war crimes, both past and present. It also points to the resilience and
determination of exiled Palestinians to reclaim their lands and
political destiny.</p>
<h3>Bejewelled landscape</h3>
<p>Yalu and the neighbouring villages of <a href="http://www.uridavis-official-website.info/jewish_national_fund_canada.htm" target="_blank">Imwas and Bayt Nuba</a> were
once known as the Latrun villages, located between the West Bank and
the Green Line, which demarcated what became Israel after the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/what-is-nakba-palestine-israel-conflict-explained-1948" target="_blank">1948 Nakba</a>. The Latrun villages were located near a strategic road that connected Jerusalem with the Palestinian coast.</p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/nakbas-harvest-sorrow-we-will-be-back-grandmother" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/column-image/000_14Y6OV.jpg?itok=1Uh7-_Yw" alt="" width="400" height="250"></a></p><p>Nakba's harvest of sorrow: We will be back, grandmother</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/nakbas-harvest-sorrow-we-will-be-back-grandmother" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>Life in Yalu before its destruction in 1967 was dignified, but not
without difficulty. My peasant family owned the land they lived on and
survived off of it, sometimes travelling to larger Palestinian cities to
sell their surplus produce. My great-grandfather owned an acre and a
half of land on which our family planted the wheat, barley and corn that
provided basic sustenance. </p>
<p>As in many other Palestinian villages, fruit trees bejewelled Yalu’s
landscape. Family elders recall the sweetness of their homegrown figs,
apricots, apples, grapes and peaches, and the abundance of olive trees.
Today, more than five decades later, amid a conversation on the
destruction of Palestinian villages and loss of life, my grandfather
still smiles when he recalls the beauty of Yalu. </p>
<p>When it was time to press olives for oil, they would travel with
their freshly picked olives to Beit Ur al-Tahta, a village near
Ramallah, to use their olive press. In 1967, the people of Yalu did not
get to make that trip. That June, Israeli soldiers forced them to march
by foot to the West Bank and Jordan with nothing but the clothes on
their backs, to live as refugees. </p>
<h3>Mass resistance</h3>
<p>“They were chained,” is how my grandfather describes the state of
Palestinians two decades before the destruction of our village. British
colonial authorities disarmed Palestinians in response to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine/The-Arab-Revolt" target="_blank">1936-39 Arab uprising</a>,
a moment of mass resistance to the collusion between British
imperialism and Zionist settler-colonialism. My grandfather recalls that
British police would impose an automatic six-month sentence on any
person found with so much as a switchblade. </p>
<div>
<p><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/article_page/public/images-story/Picture88391.jpg?itok=GPHPqY0a" alt="An undated picture of Yalu village before its destruction by Israel. The village is located between the Occupied West Bank and the Green Line (Credit: Palestineremembered.com)" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="446" height="284"></p>
An undated picture of Yalu village before its destruction by
Israel. The village is located between the Occupied West Bank and the
Green Line (Palestineremembered.com)</div>
<p>An 18-year-old orphan at the time, my grandfather recalled
the mood in Yalu leading up to the 1948 Nakba as “miserable”. The
Zionist militias that went on to form the core of the Israeli military
attempted to seize Yalu and neighbouring villages, but residents handed
the well-armed Zionist forces a rare defeat. </p>
<p>Peasants from the Latrun region risked their lives to obtain weapons
to defend their land. Those who owned land sold parts of it to arm
themselves; some women volunteered their wedding gold, selling it to
help arm the local resistance. These forces from Latrun joined the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1948/05/15/archives/bab-el-wad-battle-rages.html" target="_blank">battle of Bab al-Wad</a>, and the ensuing defeat motivated Yitzhak Rabin, then the Israeli army’s chief of staff, to seek revenge in 1967.</p>
<p>Yalu’s resistance haunted the likes of Rabin and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moshe-Dayan" target="_blank">Moshe Dayan</a>,
then Israel’s defence minister. Rabin and Dayan issued orders to expel
residents, showing that despite later Israeli claims, the ethnic
cleansing of Yalu and neighbouring towns was, in fact, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/6/4/the-naksa-how-israel-occupied-the-whole-of-palestine-in-1967" target="_blank">premeditated</a>. Israel committed war crimes through its seizure of the land and expulsion of residents. </p>
<p>Residents of the villages were rounded up in an open field outside of
Yalu; three died in the march. Survivors recalled the cries of
children, and the extreme hunger and thirst they endured. According to
Alayan, who authored the book our neighbour gave me, the three men
collapsed from hunger before Israeli soldiers shot and killed them. </p>
<p>Alayan also recorded that six people were killed under the rubble of
their homes, including a one-year-old baby. Elders in our family recall
with horror the story of a blind old man in Yalu, who was crushed under
the rubble of his home because he could not flee in time. Israeli forces
used explosives and bulldozers to flatten the village, <a href="https://www.badil.org/en/publication/press-releases/18-2004/1582-press-349-04.html" target="_blank">destroying more than 500 homes and buildings</a>. </p>
<h3>Razed to the ground</h3>
<p>The suffering did not end there. Israeli soldiers <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DS7svsTp9rwC&pg=PP120&lpg=PP120&dq=avi+raz+yalu&source=bl&ots=JNCNTPF9Md&sig=ACfU3U1s4AIKMqelt44wsHQTXRCrlZBz9g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiAmeT-ha3yAhXCU80KHXqxDaUQ6AF6BAgOEAM#v=onepage&q=avi%20raz%20yalu&f=false" target="_blank">killed five people</a>
between the ages of 17 and 60 as they attempted to return to Yalu. A
week after their initial expulsion, an Israeli commander ordered the
Latrun refugees to march home; upon arrival, they were told by Israeli
soldiers that the area was a closed military zone, and they were not
allowed to enter. Five refused these orders and were massacred on site,
their bodies hidden from their families, according to Alayan. The rest
watched from a distance as Israeli bulldozers razed their homes and
trees to the ground. </p>
<div>
<p><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/article_page/public/Picture6507.jpg?itok=Ifck_JaO" alt="Peace activists remember the war crimes committed in Yalu (Photo by: Ayman Nimer/Palestineremembered.com)" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="446" height="298"></p>
Peace activists in 2009 remember Israel's war crimes in Yalu (Ayman Nimer/Palestineremembered.com)</div>
<p>After this devastating attack, Israeli military authorities
changed course, telling the people of the Latrun villages that they were
not to return home, but instead should head to Amman. Members of my
extended family and other people of Yalu marched towards Jordan,
crossing over the <a href="https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/video/allenby-bridge-destroyed-on-august-10-1967-in-palestine-news-footage/141675831" target="_blank">bombed Allenby Bridge</a>. </p>
<p>These relatives were missing for weeks or months. My grandfather
would drive from refugee camp to refugee camp in Jordan, searching each
evening for his brother’s family.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At the tender age of six, my father was exiled from his homeland. A
formative memory in his childhood was going with his father to look for
his missing aunt and cousins</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the tender age of six, my father was exiled from his homeland. A
formative memory in his childhood was going with his father to look for
his missing aunt and cousins. Eventually, they were found - but others
were not as fortunate. </p>
<p>The right to return is a sacred right for the people of the three
Latrun villages, including my family, who still live in refugee camps
and in exile, away from our lands and property. For us, realising that
right means struggling against <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-solidarity-flawed-logic-zionism" target="_blank">Zionism</a> and also against the Palestinian leadership that betrayed our rights.</p>
<p>My family watched with horror and disgust in 1993 when Yasser Arafat <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180913-remembering-the-arafat-rabin-handshake/" target="_blank">shook hands</a> on the <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180913-remembering-the-arafat-rabin-handshake/" target="_blank">White House lawn</a> with the man who ordered the destruction of our village. Today, as the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/palestine-nizar-banat-killing-why-pa-days-numbered" target="_blank">Palestinian Authority</a> kills
and tortures Palestinians, it represents a regime of collaboration that
has undermined our right of return, hijacked our national institutions,
and worked nonstop to protect Israeli interests for a fistful of
dollars and illusory power. </p>
<h3>Ingrained in memory</h3>
<p><em>To each grain of earth in Yalu.<br>
To every tree still standing upright in defiance of time<br>
And in defiance of the occupation<br>
And looking to the return of the people of its land </em></p>
<p><em>In</em><em> the occupied land first<br>
And in all parts of the world second<br>
To all the children of Yalu.<br>
Who were born and raised in exile<br>
I offer this book,<br>
So that Yalu remains<br>
Ingrained in memory<br>
Until the day of return<br>
And God willing, it will be soon.</em></p>
<p>These are the words that Alayan uses to open his village history.
This dedication speaks to the inter-generational nature of the
Palestinian struggle, and the responsibility of each generation to pass
this commitment to the land to the next.</p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/seven-decades-after-resolution-194-why-havent-palestinian-refugees-returned-home" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/column-image/000_LG4GU.jpg?itok=B1lZTz2v" alt="" width="400" height="250"></a></p><p>Seven decades after Resolution 194, why haven’t Palestinian refugees returned home?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/seven-decades-after-resolution-194-why-havent-palestinian-refugees-returned-home" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>My grandfather was six years old when the Arab uprising of 1936-39
started. My father was six when Yalu was ethnically cleansed, making him
an exile. I was seven when the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/video/20th-anniversary-second-palestinian-intifada" target="_blank">Second Intifada</a> broke out. For many exiled Palestinians in my age group, this was a formative event in our political consciousness.</p>
<p>As a young child, I marched in Chicago against Israel’s killing of
Palestinians and attacking of al-Aqsa Mosque. This past May, young
children in my family marched to condemn Israel’s mass <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/gaza-under-attack" target="_blank">bombardment of Gaza</a>, attack on <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/al-aqsa-attack" target="_blank">al-Aqsa Mosque</a>, and attempted ethnic cleansing of <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-save-sheikh-jarrah-campaign" target="_blank">Sheikh Jarrah</a> and <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/video/silwan-jerusalem-soul-silent-war" target="_blank">Silwan</a>. </p>
<p>We are four generations living in exile, yearning for justice and our
rightful return to Yalu. We carry immense pain, just like the other
300,000 refugees of 1967, <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees" target="_blank">millions</a> of Nakba refugees, and scores of people in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah fighting settler-colonial erasure today.</p>
<p>Their resistance today highlights the Palestinian refusal to abandon
our liberation struggle. I was raised to know and love this land as if I
had lived in Yalu myself. We plan to return together. Our elders did
everything they could to spare us from the pain of dispossession, and we
honour their sacrifice by working to end the Nakba.</p>
<p><i>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.</i></p>
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