aOccupied Jerusalem- On the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, engineer Suleiman Fahmawi wanders through the lands of his village, “Umm al-Zeinat,” located on the foothills of the Carmel Mountains in the Haifa District, which was displaced by Zionist gangs. He moves between his family’s memories and the remaining landmarks that resisted extinction despite the passage of time and the obsolescence of the occupation.
Fahmawi, a member of the Committee for Defending the Rights of Displaced Persons Inside Palestine and its spokesman, lived like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced during the Nakba as a refugee inside his homeland, in the towns of Carmel and the coast, until the series of asylum settled him in the town of Umm al-Fahm, adjacent to the borders of June 4. 1967, when, like many other Palestinians from 1948, they faced demolition notices for their homes under the pretext of building without a permit.
He used to call the Palestinian refugees near their destroyed villages “refugees in their own land,” and they are about 350,000 out of two million Palestinians who were able to remain in the Palestinian areas occupied by Israel in 1948.
For their cause, Fahmawi fights the struggle for survival and existence by waging the battle of land and housing, which is considered another face of displacement and displacement, as he, like the rest of the displaced inside the country, is prevented from returning to their destroyed villages and towns that are a stone’s throw away from them.
In this interview, Tel Aviv Tribune Net returns with Fahmawi, who is considered one of the initiators of establishing the “Association for the Defense of the Rights of Displaced Persons,” to the stations of the Nakba, and through movement in his town Umm al-Zeinat, he conjures up the scenes of the Israeli war on Gaza, and the great resemblance to displacement and displacement that it carries within it. And the massacres, destruction, and displacement of what our ancestors experienced during the Great Nakba of Palestine.
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What scenes do you conjure up while walking around your abandoned village, “Umm al-Zeinat”?
The same scenes of the Nakba 76 years ago are embodied in the war on Gaza now. I come from the village of Umm al-Zinat in the foothills of the Carmel Mountains, whose population on the eve of the Nakba reached two thousand people. Our village was one of the first towns to be destroyed and its residents displaced.
With the scenes of the war on Gaza and the beginning of the ground incursion into the northern Gaza Strip in October 2023, as a refugee inside my homeland, I remember the stations and chapters of the process of displacement, displacement, and movement that we lived on the outskirts of our displaced villages and towns.
A large number of residents of 50 Palestinian villages in the Carmel and Al-Rawha area were displaced to the West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon, and some of them arrived at asylum stations in Iraq, but many families were able to stay here and became refugees inside the country in the Haifa, the coast and the Triangle region, and live a stone’s throw from their villages and towns. Destroyer.
We are still about 350,000 refugees inside the country, and 76 years have passed since the displacement, we are living on the dream of return. The steadfastness of the people of Gaza, who are living through new episodes of the Nakba, gave momentum to the Palestinian cause, brought it back to life and to the square of the first conflict in 1948, and stimulated the feelings of refugees in the diaspora to return to Palestine. .
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What did we talk about the Nakba and displacement of “Umm al-Zeinat” in 1948?
The village – like all other Palestinian villages in the coastal region – experienced a series of settler attacks in the “Mishmar HaEmek” and “Eliakim” settlements, where armed Zionist gangs continued to launch attacks on villages, commit massacres, and terrorize the population to force them to migrate, amid the formation of rebel and resistance teams to defend Population and confronting settler attacks.
I recall these scenes of what happened in my town, Umm al-Zeinat, from the stories of my father and mother, where the true beginning of displacement was when the military commander of the Zionist gangs supported by the British Mandate, who was called Karmeli, visited the village and entered the house of Mukhtar Asaad al-Mustafa, and asked him to convince its residents to leave to avoid any harm. Armed attacks, and when Al-Mukhtar refused his request, Karmeli drew his gun and killed Al-Mukhtar in his home.
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I was displaced three times inside the country since the Nakba. How did that happen?
My family, like many families, remained displaced in the mountains opposite their villages and towns, awaiting the revolutionaries and battles, and then we were displaced to Khirbet “Qumbazah” near the coastal town of Ijzim, where my family stayed there for 6 months, and then moved to the town of Daliyat al-Carmel, adjacent to the lands of “Umm al-Zinat.” “There I was born in 1952, and then we moved to the town of Al-Furaidis, and we lived in a tin hut, knowing that my family owned houses and 3,500 dunams of land in Umm al-Zeinat.
The family remained in Al-Furaidis until 1973. We live on a plot of land that does not exceed 300 square metres. We were inspired by my father in the battle to survive, endure, and continue life. He worked hard and diligently for us to continue our university education. We saw the expansion of Jewish colonies and towns on the lands of the displaced villages, including the town of “Eliakim.” “Which was established in 1949 on the lands of Umm al-Zeinat, the remainder of which was transformed into a natural reserve in order to allocate it to Israeli government projects.
The asylum stations inside the country did not stop, and in 1973 we moved to live in the city of Umm al-Fahm in the Northern Triangle, where my family, like tens of thousands of Palestinian families, faces persecution, violations, financial fines, and demolition notices under the pretext of building without a permit, after the vast majority of its lands were confiscated under the “Law.” “Property of Absentees” by Israel, to continue the battle for land and housing after their displacement, displacement, and robbing them of the most basic necessities of life.
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What are the similarities between the Nakba of 1948 and the war on Gaza?
The killing of Mukhtar Umm al-Zeinat in the middle of his house was the first shot that began the displacement and terrorization of the population, which are the chapters and scenes of the Nakba, which was known as “Plan 4,” which aimed to displace the Palestinians to neighboring countries, as the country was divided into 4 regions, and villages and towns in each region were besieged with tanks. Armed teams from 3 sides, keeping one corridor to push the residents to flee and displace them under the risk of fire and massacres, a plan that was implemented in 531 villages and towns that were destroyed after their residents were displaced.
The forced displacement corridor – according to the areas specified by the plan – led to Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and on this basis refugee camps developed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while many families took refuge in the mountains, where they lived for months on the outskirts of their villages, anticipating and waiting for the opportunity to return to their hometown. However, the Zionist gangs deliberately destroyed and blew up villages after looting homes to prevent the return of the remaining families, which is the same method that the Israeli army is implementing in the war on Gaza now.
The Jewish colonies were established on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian towns and expanded on their lands, and upon them Israel was founded. What is happening in Gaza now brings the conflict back to the beginning. The steadfastness of the people of Gaza and their rootedness above the ruins of their destroyed homes, and their refusal to escape from death, massacres and extermination have thwarted the Israeli plan to displace the remaining Arabs. In all of historical Palestine.
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Therefore, these are the same methods of displacement and displacement that Israel continues to adopt, despite the passage of 76 years since the Nakba!
True, the same methods; Months before the Nakba, armed Zionist gangs built a colony that mimicked a Palestinian town, to learn about Arab customs and traditions and to train for battles and guerrilla warfare. This is the same method that the Israeli army adopted by building a camp in the Negev before the incursion into the Gaza Strip, in order to conduct training for ground warfare and wage battles to push Gaza Strip residents forced to migrate.
My country, Umm al-Zinat, was the first town in which the Zionist gangs carried out their plan. Battles took place with the revolutionaries, dozens of them were martyred, massacres were committed against civilians, and buses were brought that transported the remaining residents to the border areas.
While dozens of families remained displaced in the mountains near the town waiting to return, but the Zionist gangs prevented this, so they moved to live in the neighboring villages and remained there as a refugee station inside the country.
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What did Palestinian refugees in general draw inspiration from the people of Gaza?
For refugees both inside the country and in the diaspora, Gaza revived hope and revived their dream of returning to the land. My country, Umm al-Zinat, which was founded in 1850, was full of life, culture, trade, and agriculture. Its residents owned 16,000 olive trees, 6 oil presses, and grain mills. Although rubble, rubble, stones, and evidence remained of the town, the olive trees remained firmly rooted and awaiting our return, as is the case with The residents of Gaza.
Returning to the scenes of the Nakba in 1948, my grandfather stayed with a group of revolutionaries in the mountains around Umm al-Zinat, resisting and fighting armed gangs for months, but like others, he was forced to withdraw after the ammunition and weapons ran out and the majority of the resistance fighters were martyred and the rest of them were wounded.
Thanks to them, we remained inside the homeland, even if we were displaced from our villages, but we lived in the hope and dream of return, which we inherited and passed on to the new generation, so that they could carry its banner to the new generations who were inspired by the massacres taking place in Gaza, the idea of steadfastness and insistence on returning to the displaced villages.
In the Gaza Strip, the plan for ethnic cleansing and displacement failed, and even the killing of thousands and the destruction of homes by Israeli aircraft did not intimidate the residents who live under continuous bombardment and build tents on the ruins of their destroyed homes and insist on survival and reconstruction.
Therefore, we learn from the steadfastness of the people of Gaza, and today we see the return to Umm al-Zeinat and all the displaced villages inside Palestine closer than ever before.
You can take away the land, but you cannot take away the people. The reality of the war on Gaza is much more difficult, perhaps than the 1948 Nakba. This is a systematic massacre, and what is happening in Gaza today is even greater in horror than the Nakba and Setback wars of 1967, but their steadfastness thwarted the 2024 Nakba.