PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 204

Some deadly combats had taken place in Gaza
between Zionists and Palestinians, who discovered
that the weapons they were being given by their Arab
supporters in the region were very often in poor con-
dition whereas the opposite camp were getting excel-
lent ones. This incited us, two other students and me,
having identified what was needed in terms of good
materials, to go into the desert and buy some from the
Bedouin arms traffickers. The next step was to disman-
tle the rifles and wrap them up in shoe boxes, and off
they went to Cairo where we met up with the Gaza
fighters in the hotels in the city centre. 41 It was our way
of contributing to the defence of Palestine.
I got my diploma in 1949, and immediately returned
to Jerusalem by way of Jordan because the route
through Gaza was shut. I found my parents in Jericho
trying their best to help thousands of Palestinian ref-
ugees who had landed there after living through hell,
having lost everything, often including loved ones as
well. Our land in Jericho had not been annexed by the
new State of Israel, but the fighting was intensifying.
I searched in vain to get a job as a journalist, so
worked as an English teacher at the Ibrahimiah Col-
lege 42 in Jerusalem, which was attended mainly by
rural children. In 1951, I finally got the opportunity
to practise my trade as a journalist working for the
Near East Broadcasting Station (NEBS), a radio sta-
tion based in Cyprus. It was run by the British but
all the employees were Arab, mostly Palestinians. The
offices were on a British military base, and our job
was to cover current affairs from the Near and Mid-
dle East in Arabic. When the Egyptian monarchy was
overthrown by the Free Officers led by Abdel Nasser
in 1952, 43 seeing our enthusiasm, the NEBS director
called us together and said:
‘I have come to tell you that we are not against Nas-
ser. You have a white flag.’
Which meant that we could speak about this event
positively. Nevertheless, three months later, he called
us together again, scowling heavily:
‘Red flag for Egypt,’ he growled.
Immediately, our team of 12 journalists handed
in their notice as a single man. After two years in
Cyprus, I came home to Jerusalem where I continued
as a journalist with a Jordanian radio station and the
United Press International (UPI) agency. 44 I then gave
up journalism and joined the Jerusalem Chamber of
Commerce as a manager.
202
Memories of 1948
The Six-Day War was like a nuclear bomb, on
June 5, 1967. I was in Amman when the Israeli armed
forces invaded Jericho. My sister called for help: I must
at any cost go and fetch our parents and take them
to safety in Amman. I left immediately, crossing the
Jordan River, stunned by what I saw: just like after the
1948–1949 war, thousands of Palestinian families were
rushing towards Jordan to seek refuge and were being
targeted by the Israeli aeroplanes.
On the outskirts of Jericho, the tanks were parad-
ing, flying the light blue and white Israeli flag at the
front. I was expecting to see other tanks in our defence,
as had been announced on the radio, but I saw none.
Later, when I met some soldiers (from Nablus and
Jenin), they told me that their weapons were in piteous
condition and that they had no petrol…
Through narrow alleys I managed to reach our house
at the very moment when two aerial raids were target-
ing the area. Within six hours – and not six days – they
occupied everywhere: not only Sinai, the Gaza Strip,
the West Bank, the Golan and Jerusalem. On June 10,
the bulldozers attacked our Maghreb neighbourhood. 45
It was not long before our house, along with those of all
700 inhabitants, was razed to the ground. We were all
in shock, no doubt because at the bottom of our hearts,
we knew that we had lost our Palestine.
I do not know how I took my parents to Amman.
It was not long before eight other families – some 40
people – joined us there. A few months later, in Sep-
tember 1967, the Israelis organized a census in the
West Bank: we all understood what that meant, and
my parents quickly returned to Jericho in order to be
included. If they had not done so, they would have lost
their properties in Jericho, like they had already lost
their property in Jerusalem. They never again left their
house in Jericho, for fear of not being able to die there.
No longer being able to gather in Jerusalem, the Sufi
brotherhood retreated to Jericho where my father con-
tinued his role until his death. 46
The Tijaniya gathered together people of very dif-
ferent origins, and that was its richness. One of its
members, Hajj Hussein, was a farmer from Jericho
and a good friend of the family. For several decades he
had been in the habit of selling his harvest to Yakub,
a Palestinian Jewish broker: Hajj Hussein would esti-
mate the value of his fruit and vegetable harvest and
send it all to the broker, who paid him three or four
months later, once the stock had been sold. For this