The Al-Liddawi family lives in the
middle of Al-Wihdat refugee camp in Amman, one of the biggest camps in
Jordan. They come from Jaffa, but came to Jordan from Gaza, which means
that they have a different status than most other Palestinian refugees
in Jordan. They cannot have a Jordanian passport and have restricted
access to services.
Born in 1963, Sa’diya, the mother,
is the heart of the family. Since her husband Omar died in 2000, she has
had to take care of her eight children on her own: Rula (24 years-old,
married and pregnant, finished university); Rana (22 years old finished
university and just submitted her application to become a teacher);
Mohammad (20 years-old, student in accounting); Khaled (19 years-old
studying to become a surgeon); Saeed (17 years-old student in final year
of high school); Ahmad (15 years-old); Mahmoud (14 years-old) and Rawan
(12 years-old). All of them were born in Gaza except for Rawan, so they
are all registered there and with the Israeli authority as Palestinians
born in Gaza.
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Jaffa (The Bride of the Sea) was Palestine’s largest and
most vibrant metropolis. It was the centre of Palestinian
industry, producing cigarettes, cement, tile and roof tiles,
iron casting, cotton processing, traditional handmade carpets,
leather products, wood box industry for Jaffa oranges, textile,
presses and was home to most of Palestine’s publications. Its
centrality to the Arab Palestinian society and economy forced
the UN to include it in the proposed Arab state in the 1947
partition plan, which did not stop 5,000 Zionist troops from
besieging the city for three months leading up to Israel’s
declaration of statehood. The poorly armed and trained defenders
of Jaffa included tens of international volunteers who came to
defend Palestine, notably from Yugoslavia. The majority of
Jaffa’s inhabitants were forced to flee using boats, ending up
in other Palestinian coastal cities like Gaza, or further in
Egypt and Lebanon. Soon after occupation, the Zionists blew up
and bulldozed three-quarters of Jaffa’s Arab section, and only
the al-’Ajami, Old City, and small part of al-Mansheyyah
neighborhoods survived demolition. Most of Jaffa’s historic Suqs
(markets) were destroyed, including Suq al-Nahaseen, Suq
al-Balabseh, and Suq al-Maslakh. In 1954, Jaffa became a suburb
of Tel Aviv, and since then both cities are known by Tel
Aviv-Yafo. Jaffa’s Old City neighborhood has been mostly
converted to an Israeli artists’ colony, the main port has been
closed, and its main Clock Square now called Kikea Hagana (The
Haganah’s Square) in honor of the military force that destroyed
the city and ethnically cleansed its people.
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They live in very dire conditions
as they have only a room, a lounge and a kitchen. They also have a small
courtyard where things have piled up next to the few hens and rabbits
they keep. This is their improved situation; a few years ago, they were
obliged to live in one room with no proper toilets. A developer appalled
by the bad conditions they were living in decided to help them by
building two additional rooms, which is still not enough. They need an
additional 7000JD to complete the work in the house.
In such a bad environment Sa’diya
has accomplished miracles. She puts the education of her children as a
first priority. She herself had to leave school when she was 14 because
her family did not have the money for her to continue. She does not want
the same thing to happen to her own children. She has struggled to push
her children to get educated and she can be proud of the results. They
are all good at school, and the older ones are in university. One is
also immediately struck by their inner kindness which contrasts with the
rough life of the refugee camp. She has also to struggle to get some
help for Rawan who had problems at birth, which led to heavy surgery and
the loss of one kidney. Later, Rawan got deeply burned on her arms. Some
French doctors offered to perform a surgery for free but her case
requires additional surgeries and help.
Sa’diya’s family history is, as
with many Palestinian refugees, marked by several exiles. Her family was
first expelled in 1948 and then she had to leave Gaza. In 1948, her
father and mother came from Jaffa. They were terrified and fled on foot.
Sa’diya was born in 1963 and grew up in Maghazi camp in the Gaza Strip.
Her husband, Omar, was also a refugee, from Al-Qubaibeh, close to Ramle
and they also fled to Gaza. Omar also had to flee Gaza during the 1967
war for fear of being arrested by the Israelis so he went to Jordan.
Omar and Sa’diya’s families were neighbors and during one of his visits
to Gaza, he married her. Sa’diya was 17 years old at the time.
Life in Gaza was not easy and
things got even more difficult when the first Intifada erupted. Sa’diya
was going back and forth between Jordan and Gaza. Every time she gave
birth she went to Gaza to register them there. Every time she fought to
have Palestinian papers for her children. But since 1996, she has not
been able to return to Gaza. She has not seen her family since then. She
calls but the calls are very expensive. She thinks about them a lot,
especially knowing what they are going through
“I wish I could help them and I miss them
a lot.” Omar was working in the mosque but
he died in 2000 from an infection.
Left alone with all her children,
she has struggled to earn money to put her children through school; she
sells things, fixes and rents out bicycles, does some cleaning and
sewing, and cooks humus. The family also gets some help from time to
time from an orphans’ aid agency.
Talking about their status and
conditions as refugees she feels that
“we have no rights.”
She points out that as far as education is concerned
the available resources are limited. UNRWA schools only provide the
service until children reach the age of 15, then they cannot go to
university without paying fees that are very expensive. Because they are
from Gaza, their status is also different. They cannot have permanent
Jordanian passports. They are considered Palestinian residents who can
go back to Gaza. They were recently told that they could stay in Jordan
only until the children completed their primary education. This means
that they will be able to stay only until July. The Jordanian
authorities have, however, said that they can stay since the Rafah
border crossing is closed. When it opens they will have to go. But for
Sa’diya there is nowhere to go back to;
“I do not have a place to stay and my
relatives are very old.” Sa’diya does not
carry a Jordanian, but a Palestinian passport. Her husband did get a
Jordanian passport and her name, as well as her children’s names were
marked under it, but it is no longer valid.
For
Sa’diya, the Nakba
evokes painful thoughts:
“I feel the pain of my family and
parents. I remember how my husband’s brother was born between the
cactus.” The
Nakba is
only part of the history of the suffering of her family, “I
cannot forget the past, the suffering of the war, and seeing the tanks.”
She recalls one episode when all
of her family could get permission and went back to visit their land of
origin in 1975. They visited the place where her aunt used to live. In
Jaffa, where her parents lived, the house was closed. Some Jewish people
told them: “take your house if you
want but go away! This is not your land!”
The house was inhabited by a black Jewish man who let them enter. The
place was renovated. Looking around, Sa’diya felt “jealous” and
“shocked”. She is attached to the house of her parents, to its memory,
as if she had actually lived there:
“I felt very angry because I remembered how we used to live there. We
were many families but happy.” Until now
the documents of the house remain with them.
Sa’diya
believes in the peace process but in a peace that will not be only in
words:
“We want to live with all of our rights, we want them
to be real. The solution is to live in Palestine, to offer us a house
where we can live peacefully, where children can go to school and
afterwards get a job. We want to have a good life as all people. If only
the Jewish people did not take our land, my children would have grown up
on it and made something precious in our homeland. How can we return
now, Jaffa is full of Jewish people? And there is no place for us in
Gaza.”
Sa’diya nevertheless hopes that
nations will support peace. Some Arabic countries are trying to help, at
least financially. She added:“for
all Palestinians, the blood must stop. The peace process has to be for
all Palestinians or there will be no peace.”
Looking at the future, she states:
“now we live in Jordan but I wish
my children can build Palestine. I want a good future for them. I am
trying to keep them on the right path and take good care of them. I
expect them to study in Jordan and then return when they have the
opportunity. Our country needs doctors.”
One of her sons jumps into the
conversation to say: “I see myself
as a creative teacher because I had many bad teachers. I want to make
successful students who will go back to build Palestine. I do not
remember Gaza as I was too small but it is not about memory, it is about
the heart.”
As we left, one of her sons showed
us proudly some research he made for school about his village of origin.
The memory of all the places does not vanish with time and Sa’diya
children’s beautiful eyes smile when they start to talk about their
future in Palestine.
