Embryo- Hajja Khadra Abu Sariya’s (86 years old) speech about the village of Zar’in, Haifa District, from which she was displaced in 1948, was full of pity and nostalgia. She began it with a loyal chant that praised the beauty of the house and explained her longing for the family, and extended to express what her childhood memory there held.
Khadra was born 10 years before the Nakba in Zar’in. She did not attend school, but she spent her childhood days in the vast expanses of its plains extending in the heart of Marj Ibn Amer, and carried her memories with her to this day.
It tells about the beauty of the town, its clean air, its residents who worked in agriculture, and its abundant water, and about the events that took place in the neighboring villages that preceded the night of their displacement from Zar’in.
First displacement
The matter began with the arrival of the Salvation Army (Arab forces) to the neighboring villages. A number of the town’s youth chose to join it to resist the advance of the occupation and armed Jewish gangs. When they reached the outskirts of Zar’in, they clashed with them and prevented their progress into it. But soon news was broadcast that armed gangs intended to attack them and slaughter people, as happened in the Deir Yassin massacre, so the people decided to leave.
Hajja Khadra remembers that it was a summer night when a truck came to Zar’in and carried a number of families, including her family, and took them to the outskirts of the city of Jenin, and from that time they were called “refugees.”
The vehicle carried Khadra, her parents, and her siblings, and they walked until they reached the village of Silat Al-Dhahr, where they stayed for a full year. Then it was decided to transfer them to the city of Jenin, “and since that day I have been living here.”
It was also decided to transfer all the displaced people from the lands of the 48 who initially settled in some of the villages of Jenin, as the land of the new camp became the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
Today, Khadra lives alone in the camp, and says that the repeated Israeli incursions remind her of the night they were displaced under the threat of armed Zionist gangs.
She explained, “They displaced us from our lands and homes, and now they are pursuing us in the camp. Years have passed, but Israel’s approach has not changed. It does not want the Palestinian to live in the 1948 territories, nor in the camp, nor anywhere.”
She adds that the occupation demolished villages during the Nakba, slaughtered people, and destroyed homes, and today it kills young people, bulldozes streets, blows up homes, and bombs the camp with drones.
Hajja Khadra was subjected to abuse and brutality by the occupation forces more than once. They stormed her house after blowing up its door and removing it, smashing its windows and destroying her personal belongings. This was followed by an attack by the police dog that was accompanying the occupation soldiers when they stormed the Jenin camp last July, which resulted in her being injured in the hand.
She says, “I am an elderly woman and I live alone. They destroyed my house and their dog tried to eat me. They do not want us to be there. In our youth and even in our old age, they do not want us to live.”
Systematic policy
The people of Jenin camp – the majority of whom are originally from the village of Zar’in in the Haifa district, while the rest come from the villages of Ain Al-Mansi, Al-Mazar and Al-Lajjun – believe that Israel is seeking to end the Palestinian camps through the demolition, bulldozing and killing operations that accompany its military attacks on them.
During their incursions into Jenin camp, which intensified after October 7, 2023 (after the Gaza War), the occupation forces deliberately destroyed its infrastructure, bulldozed its streets, damaged the water and electricity networks, demolished homes with bulldozers, and sometimes bombed them with shoulder-fired missiles or drones. To eliminate the Jenin camp and the camps in the West Bank, according to the residents.
The camp’s resident, Mahdi Turkman (22 years old), told Tel Aviv Tribune Net that each incursion is more destructive than the previous one, to push the people to emigrate. He added, “I certainly seek a stable life, which we do not find today in the camps that are constantly being destroyed. They are trying to implant this idea in us, but we will not repeat the Nakba of 48 again even if they kill us all here in our homes.”
In Jenin camp, which was established in 1953, Israel demolished the 3 most important symbols built by the people to remind new generations of the Nakba of their ancestors 76 years ago. These symbols are considered the most important and famous inside and outside the camp.
On October 30, the occupation demolished the triumphal arches that represented the entrance to the camp. They were built of stones in the shape of an arch surmounted by the Great Key of Return, and the words “Jenin Camp…a waiting station until return” were written at the top.
On the same date, the occupation bulldozers uprooted the “horse” statue at the western entrance to the camp, which represented the steadfastness and patience of its people during the famous Israeli invasion in 2002. Its direction was towards Haifa, the city where the camp’s residents were displaced during the days of the Nakba.
A month later, the occupation demolished the third symbol of the camp, which was the “Return Roundabout,” on which were written the names of the cities and towns from which the camp’s residents were displaced, and above it was the map of historical Palestine. Visitors would pass by it to take pictures and learn about the original towns of the people of Jenin camp.
Danger
Rashid Mansour (65 years old), a member of the camp’s zakat and reform committees, believes that the occupation’s attempts to end the camps and get rid of the refugees are not new, “because Israel realizes that as long as there is a Palestinian demanding the right of return, this means a threat to the Zionist project.”
Therefore – he added to Tel Aviv Tribune Net – it began refugee resettlement projects since the 1950s, “because the presence of the Palestinian people on their land and their carrying of the Palestinian narrative is a threat to them.”
Mansour confirms that Israel’s response to the resistance activity in the camp over the past three years is very harsh, in terms of the scale of killing, vandalism of homes, arrests, intimidation of people, and the destruction of streets and symbols that indicate their adherence as refugees to their right to return to their homes.
Despite this, Mansour says that the right of return is not a stone or just a symbol that can end if it is destroyed, but it is a belief held by every citizen living in the camps.
In Mansour’s opinion, Israel is putting pressure on citizens in the West Bank camps by entrenching the idea of losing security and stability in them to push people to leave or leave the camps, and by making it a repellent environment and making life difficult in it, in order to end the idea of the existence of refugees and their issue.
He confirms that Israel’s targeting of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) by persuading the world to cut off funding to it, bombing its headquarters in the Gaza Strip, and destroying its centers in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas, essentially carries a greater goal, which is to essentially end the Palestinian refugee issue.