For newly homeless Palestinians, tents stir memories of 1948
Source: AFP, 09-02-2009
JABALIYA, Gaza Strip: Majid Asamna lived in a refugee tent in Gaza after fleeing what became "Israel" in 1948 - now a new war has left him homeless again, along with tens of thousands of other Palestinians. The homes of some 30,000 Palestinians were destroyed during last month's devastating 22-day "Israeli" onslaught, which killed more than 1,330 people, including over 400 children, and carved a vast swath of destruction across the besieged territory.
In recent days Gaza's Hamas-run government has partnered with international aid groups and local charities to erect hundreds of tents in the most devastated areas, a sight that stirs deep memories for Gaza's 1948 refugees.
"I thought if I left I might never return, just like in 1948. And when I did come back, after the war, everything was destroyed," Asamna, 65, says as he surveys the sprawling ruins of six family houses crushed by "Israeli" troops. "I'll never go back to [the now ‘Israeli' town of] Askalaan, and my children may never come back to this place. When they come in and kill people like this they make it impossible for anyone to live here."
"Israel" claimed the offensive was aimed at halting Palestinian retaliatory rocket fire on settlements near the Gaza border - including Askalaan - which have killed 21 settlers inside "Israel" since 2000, while thousands of Palestinians have been killed by "Israeli" military actions in the same time.
But for Palestinians the war was the latest chapter in a tragedy that began 60 years ago, one in which bleak rows of tents are a recurring motif.
More than two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million residents are UN-registered refugees descended from the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled from what is now "Israel" in the 1948 war.
"Israeli" military records, along with the personal writings of early Zionist leaders, have documented a deliberate and planned Zionist terror campaign that ethnically cleansed more than 700,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel overtop Palestinian land. Palestinians refer to the ethnic cleansing as the Nakba, or catastrophe.
The fate of the refugees and their descendants - now numbering 4.6 million - is a core issue in the Middle East conflict although their right to return is enshrined in international law.
During last month's war Asamna remained in his home after troops backed by tanks and helicopters roared into his neighborhood, huddling inside with his 60 children and grandchildren for 11 days.
Then, after running out of food and water, they raised a white flag and marched out one by one, walking 4 kilometers to a relative's house in a neighboring town, he says. "They were still shooting. They shot at us while we were walking away."
When they returned after the war their farmstead had been flattened. Two six-door Mercedes taxis - on which they made most of their living - were crushed and half-buried in orchards plowed over by bulldozers.
Just up the dirt road from Asamna's ruined homestead local volunteers have in recent days erected dozens of white canvas tents surrounded by a short sand berm.
They call it Camp Dignity.
The camp is just a few kilometers away from Jabaliya camp, which was established in 1948 for some 35,000 refugees who were provided tents until the UN refugee agency (UNRWA) could build more permanent housing.
Camp Dignity is one of five new camps containing around 700 tents that have been established by the Hamas-run government in Gaza to provide shelter to some of the 30,000 people it says lost their homes in the three-week conflict.
"We hate the tents, and would never want to return to them," says Munir al-Bursh, a senior Health Ministry official overseeing the construction of the new camps. "But as you can see, they are still with us."
Most of the tents have been provided by the Palestinian Red Crescent society and UNRWA, Bursh says, adding that requests to import hundreds more have been denied by "Israel" and Egypt, which control Gaza's borders.
Since the Hamas takeover in June 2007 "Israel" and Egypt have prevented all but a trickle humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Reconstruction has been held up by the restrictions.
Various UN officials have denounced the Gaza blockade as "collective punishment of a civilian population," an act illegal under international law that the Fourth Geneva convention defines as a war crime.
The Hamas-run government has demanded the opening of Gaza's border crossings as part of a long-term truce, while "Israel" - which along with the West blacklists Hamas as a (so-called) ‘terror' group - has said the rockets must stop first. However, under an Egyptian-mediated truce agreed to last June, "Israel" did not honor its commitment to open the crossings even though Hamas mostly halted the rockets.
On a recent day a few hundred people milled around the camp, sipping tea and socializing under the tents. Few appeared to have moved in permanently.
"It's worse than in 1948," says Ibrahim Shannan, a father of three whose house lies in ruins. "They have put a man on the moon, and here we are, living in tents," says the 27-year-old, whose family is from Gaza. "Now we are all refugees."
Shannan is still staying with relatives at night, sleeping 15 people to a room. He doesn't think the tents are thick enough to keep out the winter cold.
Others are afraid to stay in the tents after dark for fear "Israeli" troops will return. Bursh said he saw "Israeli" Special Forces prowling nearby last week.
"Israel" withdrew all ground troops from Gaza after it and Hamas declared separate ceasefires on January 18 but has launched air strikes on the territory, prompting Palestinian militants to respond with rockets.
Asamna, who fled in 1948, says this time he is determined to remain on his land as long as he can. "I don't expect things will ever get better," he says. "The (Zionists) Jews could come back anytime. No one who does something like this could possibly want peace."
