Click image for larger view

 

Meet Manar, 13

I first met her in the Ibdaa office. She explained a painting on the wall. It shows the tents the refugees lived in before building shelters in the camp. A dove carries a key in its beak: the key of the original houses that the refugees used to live in.

Click image for larger view

 
 

"My parents teach me to love my camp. It might not be beautiful, but the people are beautiful. Everybody here is like a brother, sister, parents."

Click images for larger view

 
 

21 October 1948: This village is destroyed as a result of direct military assault. The oral history says that soldiers came and said the villagers had four hours to leave their houses. The soldiers then placed bombs inside the houses, and blew them up.

In 1944, there were 620 Arabs living here, in a little more than a hundred houses. The villagers planted olive trees, vegetables, fruit trees, and grape vines on a flat area nearby.

Click image for larger view

 

Harus is the Hebrew word for "demolished." Israeli forces during Operation ha-Har meant to expand their access to Jerusalem, and in doing so, demolished Ras Abu 'Ammar and other villages. "These stones, I think, are full of blood," says Manar, as she shows me a shoe left over from the bombings.

Click images for larger view

Ras Abu 'Ammar used to sit on a hill surrounded on three sides by the deep Wadi al-Sarar. Forest surrounds the village.

"I'm not like girls in America. They can play, they can do anything. But not me." There are now approximately 4.5 million Palestinian refugees, spread here and throughout the world.

Click image for larger view

 
 
 
 

The site around Ras Abu 'Ammar has been turned into a public park.

Click image for larger view

 
 

"I imagine seeing the village as laughing and crying. First, laughing, because it is the new generation that is coming to visit it. But crying, too, because it has been alone for 52 years." Manar was relatively calm while she explored the ruins of her village. Only later did her tears start to fall.

Where are the Palestinians? In Palestine, before the war of 1948, these cities were exclusively made up of Palestinians: Acre (Akko), Beersheba, Baysan, Lydda, Majdal, Nazareth, al-Ramla. Palestinians were the vast majority in Safad. They were also in great numbers in Tiberias, Haifa, West Jerusalem, and the ancient seaport of Jaffa. The Palestinians in the rural areas were no less in number than in the aforementioned cities, but their villages are not marked on any map. They will not be forgotten. Ras Abu 'Ammar, Manar's original village, lies 14 km from Jerusalem.

Expert Fact Do you know where Palestinian refugees live outside of Palestine today? Provided by: Geoffrey Aronson, Foundation for Middle East Peace(FMEP)

Monica