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Saffuryya Perched atop a hill like a bird (possibly the
origin of its name “Sefre” meaning bird in Syriac) Saffuriya was
the administrative centre of Palestine during the Roman period,
and has been mentioned in many of the travel writings of those
that visited and wrote about Palestine. The people of the town
fiercely resisted the destruction of their village and the
displacement of its over 4,500 inhabitants; but a combination of
aerial bombardement and a surprise artillery and infantry attack
caused most of the townspeople to seek shelter in neighboring
lands. This did not stop them from returning when the assault
had ended, resulting in a concerted Israeli effort to load the
returnees onto trucks, displacing them to other areas. Only a
few houses remain on the site, including those of ‘Abd al-Majid
Sulayman and ‘Ali Mawjuda. Otherwise the site is covered by a
pine forest planted by the Jewish National Fund to commemorate a
number of persons and occasions (such as Guatemala’s
independence day). Zahir al-’Umar’s fortress still stands atop
the hill, though some of its walls have collapsed. It is ringed
by excavation sites. On the northern side of the village the
monastery of Saint Anna still remains and serves as an orphanage
for Palestinian children. There is also a Roman Orthodox church.
Along the southern road to the village there is a synagogue that
was originally a Muslim shrine. Next to it lies a recently built
Israeli cemetery. The fertile village lands are now used by the
Israeli settlements Tzippori, ha Solelim, Allon ha-Galil
Hosha’aya, and Chanton.
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Ziad Awaisy was born the second of
five children in 1974, in the Saffafra neighbourhood of Nazareth. For
his parents, both refugees of Saffuriyya, this was a great achievement –
a son was born in their own home. Their first daughter was born the year
before when – more than a quarter of a century after the Nakba - they
were still living in a two roomed house with the father’s parents and
brothers’ families.
Founded by some of the 4,500
refugees of Saffuriyya, the Saffafra neighbourhood today continues to
shelter an internally displaced majority awaiting their return. The
hillside looks over the lands of the village. Ziad’s grandparents were
some of the first to come to the land of Saffafra in the late 1950s –
after spending some months in Bint Jbeil in Lebanon they managed
successfully (unlike many others killed or turned back) to return over
the border. In the early 1960s refugees began to gather from the
surrounding villages to which they had fled. Many people spent over
twenty years in shacks and caves before being able to afford to build.
Today, as in all Palestinian towns in Israel, the neighbourhood is
overcrowded and land a scarce resource.
As a young child I
always knew I was from Saffuriyya, I heard it all the time – “You are
not from Nazareth” – Everybody said this. I remember my older cousins
talking about it. I knew it before I knew what it meant.
Ziad describes sitting with his
grandmother and grandfather, whom he lived with, and listening to their
stories. He says that while his nieces and nephews today know exactly
where they are from, for him the difference was that he actually heard
it direct from his grandparents – “I
would absorb it from them, watch their movements as they were talking,
follow their expressions”. Most painful to
recall is his late grandmother whom he asked to accompany him to the
land of Saffuriyya many times – “And
she would refuse saying – ‘If you take me back there you will have to
leave me there.’”
Growing up in the neighbourhood of
Saffafra helps maintain a refugee village identity still today. Unlike
some refugees dispersed across Palestine and the rest of the world, in
Saffafra a large part of one village remains together. The neighbourhood
has its physical markers of memory – two schools named Al-Kastel (after
Saffuriyya’s well) and Al-Qalaa (after the Saffuriyya castle). ‘Sabra
and Shatila Street’ was built in summer 1982 by one of the Communist
summer work camps – after the massacre the people named it after the
camps where many fellow Saffuriyyans died.
When Ziad finished elementary
school his father wanted to send him to a high school in Nazareth to get
the educational opportunities that, as a refugee, he himself had not
got. At first he found it extremely hard to integrate socially feeling
like a village outsider even though Saffafra is part of Nazareth and “despite
the fact that we all faced the same difficult situation as Palestinians
in Israel.”
At school he became politically
active. Although his parents were not activists they taught him to
identify with the Palestinian people, and to struggle for what one
believes to be right. He became active on the school council, motivating
students to organize on whatever was the issue of the day – one event
that stands out in his mind is the students horror at the 1991 US
bombing of the al-Amiriyyeh shelter in Iraq.
Going to university is the time
when many Palestinians inside Israel first have to deal with the Jewish
community on a daily basis. In 1993 Ziad went to study physiotherapy at
Tel Aviv University – and continued to immerse himself in the activist
community, now more specifically with the
Jebha
(Arab Communists). As well as engaging
with local university issues – discrimination against Palestinian Arabs
in allocation of housing; an issue which persists today – students were
campaigning on the bloody events of the day, from the Baruch Goldstein
Hebron massacre to the first Qana massacre.
Palestinians in Israel have little
choice but to work within Israeli society, and working as a
physiotherapist in the main hospital in Haifa poses a daily challenge. “I
stick to my opinions and I am not afraid to let them know what I think
even if that threatens my job. They know exactly who I am and what I
think about all issues – including the right of return.”
Despite his assertiveness, and of
course the fact that many of the hospital patients are Palestinian Arabs
of the Galilee, the work causes pain and difficulty. On the day of this
interview, Ziad had had to go to work following the killing of 100
Palestinians in Gaza – “I just
didn’t want to talk to anybody.”
Sometimes he thinks of giving it
all up – going to volunteer in a hospital in Gaza or Jenin. One of the
hardest times was when his cousin was lying in the Haifa hospital close
to death after being shot by police in October 2000.
“But leaving is in the end the last thing
I would do – that is exactly what they want from us, the Palestinians
inside – to leave.”
When he returned to Saffafra after
university he became more involved with the Saffuriyya committee – a
recent triumph of which has been to legally change the name of the
committee to include the word
‘return’ officially in the title. The
committee organizes festivals and activities to raise awareness in the
community, and campaigns to protect the cemeteries remaining on
Saffuriyya land.
When I grew up it wasn’t enough just for me to feel
what they [our grandparents] passed. I asked deeper questions
about right and wrong, about power and weakness… and to try and see
other aspects of life from this perspective. I feel more committed to
pass on what my grandfather had been through – they didn’t pass it on as
they should have because of the weight of the Nakba… because they were
just struggling to see that their sons and daughters lived. I feel my
responsibility and role and this now is heavier than that of the second
generation. The third generation feels it heavier; and the Israelis
should know this.
Palestinian refugees remaining in
the Galilee know that in many ways life has been harder for refugees
across borders, people who can not even see their land. It is most
important for Ziad to get across to Palestinians throughout the Diaspora
that the Palestinian internally displaced campaign is for all refugees
to return. “I want them to know
about what we are doing, and that they are not forgotten. Our struggle
is one and the same.”
