From Hamama to Montreal

By Abdelkarim Elhassani

This book reveals key untold stories and
scenes from the life of a Palestinian who
comes from the Palestinian village of
Hamama. The book unfolds its stories
through the different stages and diverse
contexts the author has been through.
It is neither a historical record nor an
autobiography as it may appear at first
sight, rather an intricate account of the
tragedies and calamities endured by tens
of thousands of Palestinians. The book is
neither written as a political discourse, analysis, or a criticism, nor
is it a description of battles and behaviors. It is a whoop of sadness
and grief of a people whose homeland was usurped and is still living
in them.
In preparing this book, it was meant to be free of any derogation or
belittlement of anybody. I did not communicate everything and was
content with such allusions that maintain ones dignity. Indeed, this
bookby uncovering the misfortunes and atrocities Palestinian
children, men, and women went through is profoundly a message
to the future generations of Arabs who did not see these scenes
into reality.
The book is a flash of knowledge, a document for researchers, and
a source of enlightenment for readers and students alike. It contains
invaluable scenes from a substantial span of time since Field Marshal
Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem after his triumph over the Ottoman
armies in World War I and said, Today, the crusades have ended.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479741267

Book preview

From Hamama to Montreal

Reminiscence to Palestine

Abdelkarim Elhassani

Copyright © 2012 by Abdelkarim Elhassani.

Translated from Arabic to English by Ahmad Lotfy

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012920338

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-4125-0

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-4124-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-4126-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgment

Foreword

Testimonials

Chapter One

1-1   Hamama Before 1948

1-2   Hamama: The Beginning

1-3   Scenes from Memory

Chapter Two

2-1   Facts about Hamama

2-2   Hamama Preoccupation

2-3   Occupation and Ethnic Cleansing

2-4   Israeli Settlements in Hamama

2-5   Professions of Hamama People

Chapter Three

3-1   Hamama in My Memory

3-2   Hamama Population

3-3   Administration at Hamama

3-4   Economical Activity

Chapter Four

4-1   Harvest Season

4-2   Reaping Crops

4-3   Midday

4-4   Threshing Grains

Chapter Five

5-1   Summer in Hamama

Chapter Six

6-1   Feasts and Occasions

6-2   Celebration of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha

6-3   The Ant Valley Festival

6-4   Robin Season

6-5   Jacob’s Wednesday

6-6   Day of Assura

6-7   The Eggs of Thursday’s Festival

Chapter Seven

7-1   Engagement

7-2   The Marriage Contract and the Bridal Dowry

7-3   The Henna Night

7-4   Groom’s Procession

7-5   Bride’s Procession

7-6   The First Morning

Chapter Eight

8-1   Education

8-2   Kuttab Schools

8-3   The Town’s School

Chapter Nine

9-1   Heritage

Chapter Ten

10-1   1948 War

10-2   The British Tank and Grapevines

10-3   Zionist Harassments

Chapter Eleven

11-1   Resistance

Chapter Twelve

12-1   Departure

12-2   Exodus: Without Luggage

12-3   Palestinian Diaspora

12-4   A Miserable Life

12-5   The Adventure

12-6   The Edge of Life

12-7   Our House Is a Tent

12-8   I Became a Student

12-9   Living in the Beach Camp (Al Shati)

Chapter Thirteen

13-1   The 1956 War (Tripartite Aggression against Egypt)

13-2   The Story of the Russian Fleet

13-3   Israelis in Gaza

13-4   Women Feeding Egyptian Soldiers

13-5   Palestinians Killed in Cold Blood

13-6   Israeli Soldiers Raping Women

Chapter Fourteen

14-1   A Refugee Boy

14-2   Boarding School

14-3   Travel Attempt to Libya

14-4   Confusion

14-5   A Glimpse of Hope

14-6   Certificate Equivalency

14-7   The UN Scholarship

14-8   Training Scholarship from the Ministry of Industry

14-9   A Scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education

14-10   Military Parade: 23 July 1966

Chapter Fifteen

15-1   The 1967 War

15-2   Telegram to Gamal Abdel Nasser

15-3   War Irrupted

15-4   Brothers in Tahrir Directorate Detention Camp

Chapter Sixteen

16-1   Occupation and Collective Punishment

16-2   Fear and Panic

Chapter Seventeen

17-1   An Era’s End

17-2   Resistance and Arab Regimes

Chapter Eighteen

18-1   Where’s Stability?

18-2   Looking for a Job

18-3   Surrender to the Circumstances

18-4   Working in Al Ain City

18-5   Sitting Next to the Sheikh

18-6   Working at a Poultry Farm

18-7   Working with Consolidated Contractors Company

18-8   Working with the Police Department

18-9   Harassment at Work

18-10   Work Stability

18-11   The Region

18-12   Racism

Chapter Nineteen

19-1   The Emirates: My Homeland

19-2   Loyalty to the UAE

19-3   An Independent State

19-4   A Lookout for Citizenship/Permanent Residence

19-5   Losing Faith in My Manager

19-6   Migration Companies

19-7   Immigration to Canada

19-8   An Unforgettable Message

19-9   Resigning

19-10   Leaving Dubai

19-11   New Realities

19-12   Investment in Canada

19-13   General Schwarzkopf

19-14   UAE Visa Rejected

19-15   Oslo Agreements

19-16   Visiting My Homeland

19-17   Serving the Nation

Conclusion

Reference

I dedicate this book to

The souls of martyrs who fell for Palestine;

All steadfast and tormented people of Palestine;

All those who believe in the Arab unity;

All individuals and governments who work for just peace in Palestine;

The dwellers of Hamama who proudly belong to Palestine;

And the children and grandchildren of the Palestinian generations to come.

Foreword

IN A RICH chronicle of Palestine’s 1948 Nakba and its aftermath on a hopeless, helpless generation, author Abdelkarim Elhassani in this book tries to recapture the moral and tragedy in one of history’s harshest displacement conspiracies.

Elhassani was a child when legions of belligerent strangers poured into his home village to seize the land, kill kins, and force hundreds of thousands out forever. He experienced firsthand the displacement of a nation under dark clouds of atrocities that history rarely admits. And in a riveting account, he tells his own tale that took place over half a century ago.

After a long lookout for resolve and return, displaced Elhassani finally lands in Canada—a generous country which gave him everything—a cure to a hurt, homesick heart.

In his showdown with life’s joy and sorrow, Elhassani sees the strife of Palestine with stubborn tyrannical conquerors. And throughout his journey, his victim homeland never turns away from his sight or mind.

Elhassani left Palestine for good and, with a hope of eternal return, left his home in search for himself. And no sooner had he earned the financial and familial harmony and security than he joined an outspoken chorus of intellectuals, dramatists, and filmmakers who gave their remote land an ever-renewable voice.

The intricate, intrinsic tragedies and paradoxes of his life under the skies of Palestine and above foreign lands where he traveled and lived make up a candid insider’s account of half a century of riding pain and eagerness to freedom.

And hence was the decision to document this experience, an episode after another, in a relatively slow pace has its intrinsic value.

Throughout the work, the author asserts murals and touches upon miniatures. And between compact and verbose, his narrative varies, and the magic unfolds.

A mechanical engineer by training, the author did not mean to make his book a literary masterpiece as much as a testimony to the shameful silence of the world vis-à-vis an organized crime in which a nation was dropped off the map and a people forced out.

The author lived and attended primary school on the pain-ridden shores of Gaza and became one of the reasons of his father’s pride and prestige in gatherings with neighbors and relatives. A bit later, he traveled to the oil-rich deserts of Arabia, where a hard-earned career was possible, and he excelled in building a new network of friends and colleagues.

Under the ardent adversity, he lived until opportunity knocked—and soon packed luggage to Canada, with a new lease on life extended to him, wherein he earned a decent living with yet no cure to Palestine’s grief.

In Canada, Abdul Kareem’s obsession with Palestine, the case and the cause, never changed. So he decided to own a share, albeit modest, in the revival of the heritage of the land and wrote Reminiscence to Palestine.

The book, in its entirety, is an autobiography of an eyewitness of the 1948 Nakba. The author, though not the only prey of the atrocities on the soil of Palestine, is one of a few who gave a voice to such atrocities.

His tale is a creditworthy piece that shatters the lies of biased media and the forfeits of aligned lobbies that left no stone unturned to drop such a tyranny into oblivion.

By this book, Abdelkarim Elhassani joins the ranks of top Palestinian and Arab figures, such as the legendary poet Mahmoud Darwish and a band of bright intellectuals such as Fadwa Tuqan and Samiha Al-Qassim who—with varying tools, ingredients, depth, and intensity—granted the distant homeland years of their lifetime and a rare devotion.

All in all, Reminiscence to Palestine adds a lot to the repertoire of the Nakba, as it revisits the life of an Arab who, under oppression, lost everything but has a belief in a future of justice and a right of return.

Ahmad Lotfy

The Translator

Acknowledgment

I WOULD LIKE TO extend my deep gratitude to all those who helped bring this work to the limelight—be it with advice, dedication, thoughts, guidance, or revision. My special thanks goes to those who drew my attention to multiple additions and enhancements that made this book more vivid and valuable, and those who spared no support or effort and shared their constructive criticism.

My heartfelt gratitude to the following:

My wife, who put much effort in revising the Arabic version of this book.

Mr. Abdelqader Elamleh, who gave much of his time and effort in revising this book and to whom I feel deeply grateful.

Mrs. Salwa Hammad, who added great substance to the heritage-related scenes in the chapter on Marriage in Hamama until 1948.

Ali Elquqa, who made the book much richer with his information about feasts and education at Hamama until 1948.

The Author

Foreword

IT IS NO exaggeration to say that I was completely puzzled while trying to write an introduction for this book. This is not because I was influenced by the meanings and sensations the book urges but because it was difficult to put all such intricate meanings together in a few words. Yet after much patience, I really found it impossible to craft an introduction the way I wanted or at least as it should have been. This put me at odds with myself. I rebelled against the narrow frame of thought to which I restrained myself and finally came to realize that all I can simply say is that the book reflects the heartrending story of my journey from Palestine to the maze.

Now I am sixty-five. I have climbed up from the bottom of life—starting up from a miserable childhood, floating on to the surface, pushing my way with others in a long journey of pain, suffering, and estrangement. After these long years, however, all I can remember about this horrible experience is that it has always been a nightmare and an inevitable, ruthless fate that stayed with me in my sleep and wakefulness.

That nightmare afflicted my heart with constant pain and anguish, and I found no other channel to communicate it except through writing. So I expressed it in a so deep affection; my blood was the ink with which I wrote. The book features everything my eyes fell on from my childhood to the different stages of a life of hardship and misfortunes—a youth filled with difficulties and vicissitudes; an old age encompassing a myriad of surprises, unrest, and instability, and obviously the moments of putting my thoughts to writing.

I placed a great passion for my usurped homeland in this book, as it embraces my longing for my home village of Hamama. And why not? Hamama is the daughter of Ancient Greek gods, and its people are those who made it a protection valley for Saladin’s army during their attack on the last of Crusaders’ forts in eternal Ashkelon. Hamama was also the shelter for ancient Palestinians—the people of the five kingdoms, who brought in enlightenment and civilization from behind the sea and who were the first to introduce iron into Palestine. And it is only Hamama and surounding region from Gaza city to Oshdud that served as a shelter and a land of power for early Palestinians—the children of Jebusites, Amorites, and Canaanites, the real owners of this land.

This book lays blame on our Arab nation that, out of ignorance, embraced the creed of regionalism and made regionalism as its own religion and way of life, so the term Arab became almost meaningless.

Hence, with this humble biography of an average man, I tried to convey to my readers how Palestinians have lived through the reality and realms that have been imposed on them since 1948.

The Author

Testimonials

PALESTINIAN DIARIES AND biographies do not only involve searching in the mirror of the self and secrets of the individual memory as a means to explore the life of the writer with all the feelings and events he has been through during different stages of life. Rather, it expands to include the collective memory, I and the Other, with the various places and times, and maturely record the events of the Palestinian cause with scenario details embodying the struggle, pain, and agony of the Palestinian people accompanied with a clear definition of Palestinian villages and towns with all that is inside them of faces, names, houses, trees, and events helping to reexplore the self in the mirror of place.

Issuing self-diaries and biographies are not restricted to only heads of community, famous people, and prominent figures of society. Indeed, this field has been prevailed by such figures that still practice their game till today by publishing their statements and opinions. Nevertheless, under the current circumstances, it is required to pick events and present them by other parties of those having rich experience attracting the attention of readers.

There are many Palestinians—whether of those of real national struggle, knowledge, thought, or literature—who has written their diaries and biographies in different patterns and aspects. They have attracted thousands of readers who yearn to know more about the hidden parts of their national cause. I can say that I have satisfied my craving by reading all the books to which my hand could reach in this field.

There is a distinguished and rich biography recorded by Eng. Abdelkarim Elhassani in his book From Hamama to Montreal. In this book, he expanded his place dimension of his home village Hamama to cover his feeling of existence in all his successive stages of life. He shed light on his life at his village from the beginning of his childhood awareness using a direct narrative style, enabling the reader to see the faces of people, houses, and orchards; sense the words of songs, folklore games, and names of tools; and know how to spell letters and words. Not only that but he was able to go deep into the Palestinian agonies, with all the sad events, from a personal perspective, which he expressed with detailed pictures intensely colored with bitterness and disappointment.

Dr. Sameeh Mas’oud

Maktoob blog

September 15, 2009

While reading invaluable From Hamama to Montreal, I am really pleased to deliver to the students of the faculty of arts at the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, the content of that book which is an authority on the Palestinian cause in a unique tact and knack. I am carefully reading the book, and I thank its author, Abdul-Kareem Elhassani, for his efforts in issuing this book. I have included his name in the ontological representation I am about to edit on the Canadian of an Arabic origin artists, thinkers, and journalists.

Dr. Latifah Haleem

Mohammed V University

Rabat, Morocco

Chapter One

1-1   Hamama Before 1948

PALESTINE, THE LAND of truth, history, calamity, and past events no longer occupies the minds of people of those bad times anymore. Those who witnessed the disaster passed away, and their time is slipping away with the passing days and years. The politicized diaries do not always reveal everything as they contain facts and blames deeply causing wounds. Returning to the past in handling the present is not anymore a virtue in the view of unjust humanity. Sorrow, oppression, cries, migration, and loss of home have become, under the age of the superpowers, ordinary matters, such as car and plane accidents appearing in the headlines, screens, and news of media. They are quickly forgotten. However, those having the right remain repeating the tone of memories, so we will always remember.

Hamama—Poem

¹

One day,

We had a white dove (Hamama).

We loved it passionately.

We loved it madly.

The sky was once filled with storms and thunderbolts,

So the dove was suddenly killed.

All of a sudden,

I took its broken wing

And taught it writing and letters.

And it taught me poetry.

A poem after a poem, a book after another,

Until I turned into a poet,

Seeking for nothing but to talk about the dove,

And the wing that turned into a letter.

A book after another,

Until I turned into a poet,

Seeking nothing but to talk about the dove,

And the wing that turned into a letter.

1-2   Hamama: The Beginning

I was born in Hamama, located at the coast of occupied Palestine midway between the towns of Al-Majdal and Oshdud. My father, mother, and all my ancestors lived there. Hamama was the only homeland I knew. I was less than six years old in 1948. My mother said I was born at my grandfather’s house. We used to live with my grandparents, uncles, and their families. My father as well as each one of my uncles had a single room at the big house, which I could imagine taking a square shape.

As our family grew bigger and my father had four children, he saw that one room would not be enough for us all. So my parents decided that we should have our own house. They managed to buy a house in an adjacent neighborhood and made some modifications to it so that it could accommodate us all.

Image6198.jpg

1-3   Scenes from Memory

There are some early childhood scenes still stuck in my memory. One day, I was at home with my father. My mother milked a goat for us; my father brought some loaves of bread and a big clay dish. My father began to break the bread into small bite-size pieces. He put the bread in the dish then brought a dark cloth bag and reached from it two handfuls of sugar that he sprinkled over the bread and then added the milk which my mother just brought. I recall the dish being full as we started eating; once done, it was totally consumed except for some small traces inside.

There is another scene that I still recall to memory. Once I saw my father, when I was alone at home with my mother, bring two big loaves of bread from the house and toasting them on the fire. This was a seemingly common morning habit. My father had cut the loaves into pieces, poured on them a considerable quantity of olive oil from a clay pot, and then sprinkled on the mixture a little sugar. I ate with them, and I do remember that the meal was so delicious.

Except for these few scenes, which I consider as my window on life and a few other incidents that took place at that time, that is all I can remember from my early childhood. From that point on, I began to understand and remember all that my eyes could see and my ears could hear, and all that is tangible around me.

A while after that time, I saw my father and elder brothers digging a relatively big square hole in the center of our house yard that is almost one and half meters deep, and about five meters in length each side. My father roofed that hole with wood and metal plates and made a door for it. Even the door was hidden and covered with dirt. That hole, called the buried room, was filled with sacks of wheat and other crops, jars of olive, bottles of oil, and other foods such as dried vegetables and fruits. These were our family’s food supplies for the coming seasons, especially winter.

My mother had an orchard of olive trees which she had inherited from her parents. It was on the borders of the houses in our village toward the north at a place called Al-Mezyarah. I knew that place very well. That orchard contained a few apricot trees in addition to the olive trees. It was very important as it was our family’s main source for oil and olive, which was a basic food for Palestinians across ages. I also remember that it was considered a supplementary income source for our family in addition to the other agricultural sources.

My parents, as I came to know later, were two hardworking people. Each one of them had a distinct quality, or it may be a quality with which they complemented each other. My father was tough, hardworking, patient, and persistent, especially in agricultural works. He was also stubborn, harsh, short-tempered, inflexible, yet was good, very truthful, and generous within his limits; and he fearlessly told the truth, as testified by all those who knew him.

As for my mother, she had a different character. She was harsh when she felt angry and patient whenever she wanted. Her patience would exceed that of wise people. She was distinguished among her family for her thinking with which she could compete against the wisest men. This might be due to her being the daughter of one of the prominent landlords in the village.

My father and three uncles inherited from my grandfather a vineyard bordering the seacoast. It was originally one big vineyard, and they divided it among themselves. Some of my uncles worked in fishing in addition to agriculture, and some of them had fishing boats. My father was rarely working in fishing. That might be because he was not a good swimmer, so he kept his focus on agriculture. He managed to achieve some of his aspirations in regard to increasing his property of lands.

I still remember as a kid when I used to go to our vineyard on the sea. I was not attracted to the land as much as I was attracted to the sea and its blue water and the far horizon. I stored that marvelous view inside me so that it would turn into an inspiration making me remember the beautiful coast of Hamama whenever I came to see a beach covered with gold soft sand.

It is not important to mention my name as I am just an Arab from Palestine. My story is not different from that of many others from Hamama or from any other Palestinian village and town. Their stages of life are like mine as we are a people who still pay a price for a crime we have not committed. So, in that sense, I am one of the Palestinian people who were born at the coast village of Hamama, which was occupied by Zionist forces in 1948. I am one of the displaced people of Palestine due to the Zionist terrorism, which has been the most unjust, brutal, and arrogant against humanity across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Like many others in our Palestinian simple rural community, I did not have an official birth certificate. This is despite the fact that my younger brother had a documented original birth certificate. My family and relatives might have agreed on determining my birth date by comparing my age with that of my peers. On that basis, they obtained for me an age estimation certificate.

I greatly wish that I could succeed in this fast crossing to the depths of my childhood memories so as to present a real description of the events and things I have seen, touched, and lived through since I have opened my eyes to the world. Here, I just present glimpses of my journey through life, depicting a Palestinian like millions of Palestinians, whose wound is still bleeding with misery, loss, and sorrow. Our new generations are still paying the same price of instability in this spacious world, yet that seems so narrow to us only.

I am just picking a chapter from my life to shed light on the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of the Israeli state, the Nakba of Palestine or the loss of Hamama. I am just introducing a humanistic chapter that essentially relates to the Palestinian tragedy and misery. I want to share it with the entire world or rather with every human who has no idea about the reality of what happened in Palestine.

I hope this attempt captures a humanistic empathy and the attention of every man and woman reading through these lines. That way, we might agree, even if distantly, that Arabs’ nationalistic shortcoming throughout the past years—which stood on backwardness and declining to achieve Arab unity—is the real catastrophe and the constant disaster for Palestinians and Arabs alike.

Our story, as Palestinians, is simply comparable to that of a person who felt secure and stable at home, and suddenly someone broke into his house, threatened, and challenged his security and stripped him of his belongings and threw him out of his own house. Yet what happened in reality was much worse than that. We were forcibly uprooted from our homes and thrown out like the homeless on the streets of the world.

I lived part of my childhood in a Palestinian rural life, which was happy for a very short time. That childhood was suddenly transformed into misery, poverty, and hardship. Even though the degree of suffering might be different for some, the sense of loss still accompanies all Palestinians, including those who are seemingly settled in some countries due to issues of racial or regional discrimination or both. This Palestinian tragedy totally devastated the stability of our family as well as the families of thousands of other Palestinians since we have lost our property and house in Hamama.

I, as well as all those like me, testify that we have lived all the tragedy of Palestine, whether since we have been terrorized after being safe in our village Hamama or through the consequent displacement, terrorism, starvation, deprivation, poverty, misery, chase, and instability in an endless maze. In this book I shall only mention some glances from here and there. This is not because no one else has shed light on that tragedy, but because I hope that what I mention may be another emphasis that we are a nation having roots, civilization, distinction as well as all the other characteristics qualifying it to be an independent entity. This nation suffers an usurped right. In case some of our dreams come to vanish and some of our hopes are lost, our right is firm and will not vanish no matter how the dust of years may cover it. This is because we are the offspring of the Arabs who lived at the west of the Jordan River. We are not invaders of a foreign land. We are the real owners of the land. The Jebusites, Amorites, and Canaanites are our Arab ancestors. They lived in Palestine long before the Hebrews came to it. When Hebrews came to Palestine, it was not void of inhabitants, or what would be said about the wars that took place between the Hebrews and Palestinians as also affirmed by the Torah itself!

Besides, what I wrote was neither the product of my imagination nor did it contain any embellishment or adornment. It is not a biography in as much as it is a trial to describe a real pattern of a Palestinian family or a nation that has lived on its own land for thousands of years; then all of a sudden, this land has been taken away from us. As for talking in the first-person pronoun in many chapters of this book, it is no more than a wish to prove the event, emphasize witnessing it, and provide the proof so that there could be no room for doubt.

What happened to me and to the family of my father, may Allah have mercy on him, was not a unique thing. Rather, it happened, in one way or another, to all the Palestinians who were forced to leave their towns and villages in 1947 and 1948. Other Palestinians who lived during that era differ from me only in their names or in the names of the Palestinian villages or towns they lost or came from, but the chapters of our Nakba (tragedy) are the same. Palestinians have been and still are the victims of their Arabism full with regionalism and disunity. As a result, dispersion and division have been our bed after 1948, and the sense of loss and homelessness has been our cover. Thus, we have begun to roam all over the world looking for our lost home and dignity. The wound is still open.

The Israelis invaded my village Hamama in the fall of 1948. They made it a part of their state after they removed its houses from existence. According to their perception of material power, that village would belong to us no more. You could see tens of thousands of the people of Hamama and their offspring living in refugee camps located thirty-one kilometers from it or even living in Gaza Strip. There are also thousands of the people of Hamama, along with their children and grandchildren, still roaming in the land without any home.

The Nakba of Palestine or loss of Hamama took place decades ago. Therefore, it would not be too much for me or for any other person of a Palestinian origin to remember our cities, towns, and villages in Palestine. Those were the places where we were born and lived along with our fathers and ancestors. It would not also be too much for me as well as others to remember our homeland where all my family members and I were born. It is Hamama, the peaceful village that lies immortal across ages at the Palestinian coast bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Its fertile lands extend while bashfully wrapped in a garment made of golden sand overlooking Hamama valley, located east to the famous vineyards of Hamama and the spacious wheat plains. Peace be upon Hamama!

Chapter Two

2-1   Facts about Hamama

², ³ Palestinian Memory: Dr. Waleed Al-Khaledi.

OH, MY DEAR homeland, do not let us live homeless anymore. Our pleasures have gone away, our steps are stumbling in darkness, and we are looking desperately for a glimpse of hope. The journey is too long, and life is a mystery. Can we one day find a chance to get back to our identity that was torn up by the many years of exile and put an end to our agonies and homesickness?

Over the miles, we frequently come back to ourselves, leave our bodies behind, and send our souls to you, our homeland. Your beaches, your desert lands, your sea and rivers, your blue sky, all are still alive within our hearts. They rekindle our longing to you, and then we have no choice but to let them go.

Despite everything, we never give up hope, dreaming of a day when we would come back to Palestine and sit on its shore. Then, we would pledge never to leave again. Anywhere other than here is not a place to dwell, but just a transitional move to our country of origin.

Once, I sat on the shore of the La Manche in Brittany, northwest France. I imagined the cries of the victims of the World War II, which seemed like the sighing of the homesick like me. Homesickness is more grievous than the terrors and atrocities of war, and inner pains can be even worse than reality. It has been too long since we lost our homeland, and we are still waiting, but we will never stop dreaming of the day of return. One day we will surely return to our sea and land. The land, the plants, the sea, everything calls us back. There is nothing more difficult than waiting for over sixty years.

2-2   Hamama Preoccupation

The village of Hamama is located at a level area of the coastal plain about two kilometers away from the seacoast. It was surrounded by sand dunes to the west side. A coastal highway and a railroad were extended nearby toward the east of the village. The site was called Tal Mashqafa, which dates back to the fifth century AD. Formerly, it was called Peleia, a Greek word that is pronounced in English as Palya and translates as dove. Near the village, a battle was fought by Muslims in 1099 against the Crusaders who gained victory.

Hamama was the birthplace of Ahmed Al Shafae, a renowned Islamic scholar and preacher in Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, in 1596. Built close to Gaza with a population of 462, Hamama paid taxes on goats and beehives. In his diaries on the journey he made across the region around the mid-eighteenth century, the Muslim explorer Al-Bakri Al-Siddiqi said that he visited Hamama coming from Al-Jura )in Gaza). Inhabitants were mostly Muslims and built their homes alongside the roads to neighboring villages. This led to the appearance of a starlike construction pattern. There were two elementary schools, one for boys (established in 1921 and contained 338 students) and the other for girls (opened in 1946 with 46 students).

The government of the village was conducted by a municipal council.

Hamama’s people cultivated a wide range of crops, such as grains, citrus, apricots, almonds, figs, olives, watermelons, and cantaloupes, in addition to its widely known production of grapes. Due to the existence of sand dunes in the west and in the northern part of the town, trees were planted on parts of those lands to prevent soil erosion. In 1944-1945, a total of 961 dunams were planted with citrus and banana trees and 20,990 dunams with grains, along with orchards covering 4,325 dunams. Besides agriculture, villagers worked in fishing. The neighborhood was full of archaeological sites, including Khirbat Shaykh Awad and Khirbat Khawr Al-Bayk.

2-3   Occupation and Ethnic Cleansing

According to the news reports published by Felesteen newspaper, Hamama was first drawn into the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, after a group of peasants from the town working in the adjacent fields were attacked by Jewish settlers from Nitzanim settlement on January 22, 1948, leaving fifteen Arabs wounded and two in critical condition. Two days later, a unit from Nitzanim opened fire on Hamama residents, killing one and injuring another. On February 17, a group of workers waiting for a bus on the road between Osdud village and Hamama were fired upon, wounding two. Felesteen newspaper also reported that the attackers fled back to Nitzanim settlement.

Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, said Hamama was captured by Israelis from the Egyptian army in the third stage of Operation Yoav on October 28 (see Barbara in Gaza). By then, many refugees from nearby towns were in Hamama who were then under other military attacks. Oshdud (five kilometers to the north) was under air and sea raids at the beginning of the military operation. On October 18, 1948, the New York Times reported that Israeli bombers had been striking targets for three consecutive days, including Osdud, with almost no resistance. Most of the residents escaped with the Egyptian army that had withdrawn before Israelis came in on October 28, 1948.

At stage 3 of the operation, more lands were occupied. Hamama and the Al-Qubeibah village, which belonged to Al-Khalil (Hebron) subdistrict, were also seized by the Israelis on October 28, 1948. According to Morris, most terrified Arab civilians left Hamama, and some were driven away. When Israelis entered Hamama, it was full of refugees from Oshdud and other towns, as documented by the brigade’s intelligence unit report. The rest of Hamama inhabitants and refugees ran away, or were forced by Israeli soldiers to run away, toward the south, he added. A cruel yet not widely known massacre was committed on October 29, 1948, in Al-Dawayima, around twenty-five kilometers to the east of Al-Khalil subdistrict. Most parts of the neighborhood were depopulated as a result, Morris indicated.

Hamama Today

The town has no trace of existence now. The place is full of wild plants surrounded by unused lands (2009). There were three Israeli farming settlements that were established after the 1948 occupation, along with the Nitzanim settlement that had been set up earlier.

2-4   Israeli Settlements in Hamama

In 1940s, two settlements were created northeast of the village: Nitzanim (1943) and Kfar Hanoar Nitzanim (1949). Beit Ezra was built in 1950, and a farm called Eshkolot was established during the 1950s.

Hamama is located in the southwest of the Palestinian coast, between Oshdud and Al-Majdal City. It is two kilometers from the coast, two kilometers north of Al-Majdal, and nearly thirty-one kilometers northeast of Gaza, close to the railroad and the Jaffa-Gaza coastal road. Hamama belonged to Al-Majdal subdistrict of Gaza district per Mandatory Palestine administrative division.

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Hamama was linked with the main coastal road by side roads that connected it to the railroad station, Al-Majdal, and the seacoast. Its western side bordered the seacoast from Al-Majdal south to Oshdud in north, with a six kilometers in length. From the south, it bordered Al-Majdal from the seacoast west to the Julis village in the east, extending six kilometers. To the east, it adjoined Julis from the south to Bayt Daras village in the north, making joint borders of six kilometers in length. Its six-kilometer northern borders touched Oshdud and Bayt Daras west to northern Julis.

Hamama’s land is a square-shaped village, with a total area of thirty-six square kilometers (or thirty-six thousand dunams). Other studies show that the village’s total area by 1948 was more than forty-one thousand dunams (the Palestinian encyclopedia). This may be related to ownership changes and interpenetration of lands. Topographically, seaside lands were sandy, extending two kilometers to the town’s western residential area. The town was surrounded by a