This is the village of Al-Ghabisiyya, which lies 16km north-east of the city of Acre. It was the home of my husband’s family and the birth place of my father-in-law. It is now nothing but rubble after Palestinian inhabitants were forced to leave during an-Nakba (the Catastrophe) on May 1 1948 - 67 years ago today.
There have been several attempts to repopulate the village since 1948. The most notable attempt ended in 1950 when the village was declared a military zone and the houses bulldozed. Those who had returned after 1948 were forced to flee once more. No provisions were made for them to settle anywhere else.
Villagers continued to pray in the Ottoman-era Mosque (the one building left standing) until it was fenced off in 1997 under Shimon Peres’ administration. Villagers continue to pray in the field outside the mosque to this day.
My in-laws now live in the over-crowded refugee camp of Ein al-Hilweh, where they remain stateless refugees, 67 years after they were forced to evacuate their home.
(All pictures are from palestineremembered.com, an amazing resource dedicated to compiling a list of destroyed Palestinian villages).
It is now 70 years since my father in law was forced to leave his home with his family and has never been allowed to return
It is critical to understand the Nakba if you want to support Palestine, and how Palestinians, 74 years later, cannot reclaim their stolen land, homes, and belongings. And not only that, but to many, the Nakba never ended. Palestinians are still having their homes stolen or demolished, still in refugee camps, still having to deal with settlers encroaching on their land and committing acts of violence against them, Palestinians are still being murdered and left under brutal settler military occupation.
Some of the journals destroyed included first-hand accounts of the brutal campaigns carried out by the Zionist forces, Palestinians documenting the horrors they had to endure for posterity…only for it to be burned and lost, all so people who hate us 70 years later can continue to deny us our own history.
Much like Israel expelled Palestinians from our homes only to fill those same homes with foreigners, converting them into “Israeli homes”, they turned our books into pulp and used them to make paper on which to print their own books. There isn’t a single aspect of Palestinian life that wasn’t stolen from us.
Those books that weren’t destroyed were locked away in Israeli government archives, with the more rare texts being added to Israel’s National Library [including one-of-a-kind texts, golden-gilded Qur'ans, first-edition works, etc]. Many of these still include inscriptions made by their original Palestinian owners, who aren’t even allowed within Israel proper to this day.
Israel destroyed our towns and cities, took over our homes, burned our history, and continues to encroach on and steal our land. That is why on Nakba Day, we remember what happened to us, the catastrophe and destruction of Palestine, and do what we can to ensure that the efforts of those who tried to erase us were in vain.
It is critical to understand the Nakba if you want to support Palestine, and how Palestinians, 74 years later, cannot reclaim their stolen land, homes, and belongings. And not only that, but to many, the Nakba never ended. Palestinians are still having their homes stolen or demolished, still in refugee camps, still having to deal with settlers encroaching on their land and committing acts of violence against them, Palestinians are still being murdered and left under brutal settler military occupation.
The anniversary of the massacre of Deir Yassin and the beginning of Al Nakba! Imagine the terror and horror they must have felt as they were pushed to the Sea…Yes they pushed the Palestinians into the Sea, not the other way around! Deir Yassin massacre occurred on April 9, 1948, and also that by May 15, all of the major cities of Palestine had been cleansed of Arabs and about one half of the 750,000 to 800,000 Palestinian refugees has been ethnically cleansed by the Zionists. This was the beginning of the expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs from Haifa and from Palestine…Start of the Al Nakba!
