Nakba survivor: ‘If you wanted to live, you left’

May 16th, 2013

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

#NAKBA65 | 65 YEARS NAKBA = ENOUGH!

Maan News Agency | May 16, 2013
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218955_345x230[1] BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Ghatheyya Mifleh al-Khawalda was 15 years old when she fled her home during the Nakba of 1948.

Now 80, Ghatheyya was once a carefree teenager who used to live with her mother and sister in the village of al-Qastina, northeast of Gaza.

Although her early life was marked by tragedy — her grandmother died when she was born and her father passed away on Eid al-Adha — she says she had a happy childhood.

“We had a very nice house, a big house with marble floors in the hallway. My father was a farmer, and we had farmland with orange trees, apple trees, grapefruit trees and others. I used to spend my days playing with my sister and the other girls in the village. We were very happy,” she told the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

Her life changed dramatically in 1948, when Jewish militias arrived in the area where she lived.

“We had heard stories about attacks on other villages. Still, the attack on al-Qastina came without warning. Before that, there had been a British military camp nearby, but that year the British left and allowed the Jewish groups to take over.”

Some Jewish militia members were wearing uniform and others had civilian clothes, Ghatheyya said, and when they arrived in the village they began firing at people, killing three villagers.

“We ran away, afraid for our safety, and went to Tal al-Safi, a nearby village on a hill. It was within walking distance, and we were in a hurry to leave, so we didn’t take anything with us. It was like Doomsday. It was utter terror. People’s minds were imprisoned by fear. We couldn’t think of anything except leaving, not even simple things like bringing food with us,” she said.

After a few days in Tal es-Safi, militias came again and forced them to leave. Ghatheyya and her family fled to Beit Jibrin to spend the night, but were followed and forced to leave again.

“If you wanted to die, you stayed. If you wanted to live, you left,” she recalls. “Their main aim was not to kill us, but to get rid of us. If they had wanted us all dead, not one of us would have survived. They used fear to force us to leave our land.”

The family walked along the coast until they reached Gaza. There were thousands of people who fled other villages, sleeping in mosques or on the street, Ghatheyya says, and UNRWA began to build tents for the families.

Ghatheyya and her husband Ahmed, also a refugee from al-Qastina, now have 32 grandchildren and live with their son Nehad. She says she thinks often about her village, and had the chance to visit al-Qastina in the early 1980s and 1990s.

“Al-Qastina crosses my mind very often. It doesn’t make sense that I cannot be in my home, on my land, in the place where I grew up. I still dream of the days of the land.”

More than 760,000 Palestinians — estimated today to number 4.8 million with their descendants — were pushed into exile or driven out of their homes in the conflict surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.

Around 160,000 Palestinians, who remained in Israel after 1948, now number around 1.36 million people, or 20 percent of the country’s population.

Al-Nakba Infograph by @visualizingpal

Click to enlarge

FACT SHEET | THE NAKBA – 65 YEARS DISPOSSESSION & APARTHEID – The Imeu

Brief Notes From Palestine and The Ongoing Nakba | Quick Insight
10 Facts abou the Nakba | Quick Facts
Palestine villages destroyed during Nakba | Interactive Map
The Palestinian Genocide | Research
Nakba 1948 | The Documentary | Part 1 | Part 2 | Video
1948 | Lest we forget… | Memorial
Plan Dalet and the Nakba | Facts
UN’s complicity in Palestine’s fate | Facts
In 2,5 months time UNSCOP created millions of refugees lasting 64 years | Facts
Al Nakba – The zionist project | Facts
A must read… Our Paradise on Earth | A story of the Nakba | A Voice From Palestine
Erased and written over: How Nakba villages sunk into Israeli landscape | Facts
Nakba Survivor … add your families story here | Project
Tracing All That Remains Since Nakba | Nakba Project
Zionist massacres of the Nakba | Facts
The Children of Deir Yassin | Memorial website
Deir Yassin Massacre – April 9, 1948 | History
Deir Yassin Remembered | Video

Photography

Nakba Day 2011 | Ramallah May 15, 2011 | by Ahmad Mesleh | Photos
Nakba Day 2011 | Marches & death on the borders May 15, 2011 | Photos
Nakba Day 2012 | In Photos

More Photography | The Nakba

The Nakba – In photos (Click to see the full album)

Nakba Commemoration 2011 – In photos (Click to see the full album)

More pictures in the Gallery Images | الصور

iRemember… | Confirmed Names of Martyrs Occupation
Special Topic | Ethnic Cleansing
The Palestinian Right of Self Defense

انّا للہ و انّا الیه راجعون

May Allah Subhana wa Ta’ ala grant the Shuhada Jannatul Firdaus, and ease it for their families, loved ones and anyone around them. Allahumma Ameen ya Rabbil Alameen. ‘ Inna Lillahi wa ‘ Inna ‘ Ilayhi Raji’un, Allahu Akbar

ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

* The by media displayed narrative of a bodycount – victims fallen by direct violence – does not display, the numerous victims of the zionist occupation which mostly stay undocumented. Nor it displays the victims of the “silent onslaught” due to restrictions of movement, ability to go to hospitals for treatment or life saving surgery, due to lack of medication because of the blockades and so on. For example: The Slow Motion Genocide by the Siege on Gaza only, killed 600 patients since Gaza got under Israeli Siege.

For an overview of All Israeli Massacres Palestinians go here

Neither does media display the avoidable mortality. A clear and statistical factual evidence, about the number of deaths due to indecent ruling by occupation forces. For even an occupier has obligations under International Laws, Geneva Convention and the Hague regulations, which it is neglecting.

These circumstances, together with deliberate policies of the occupier to neglect and even deny every basic human right, severes avoidable mortality which is totally silenced by media or reporting organizations. While in the Holocaust, 1 on 6 Jewish people directly died of deliberate neglect, so if we believe the facts over 1 million due to avoidable mortality, neither should these same circumstances be ignores which are ongoing in Palestine.

For this report displays a avoidable morality of at least 0,5 million Palestinians.

How many more dead corpses of Palestinians does the international community need to see in order to act? How many more cruelties and violations of Human Rights, Regulations and International Law will be needed to intervene so this ongoing warcrime is being stopped once and for all.

Source Article from http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/nakba-survivor-if-you-wanted-to-live-you-left-nakba65/