No Place to Call Home
My Life as a Palestinian Refugee
By Thuraya Ahmad Hasan Ghannam, Dorothy BuckAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2016 Thuraya Ahmad Hasan Ghannam
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5049-7115-7
CHAPTER 1The first journey of my life ... and the Diaspora of my country
This is the story of my life. I narrate it to you honestly and with tears of tragedy. I am writing my story, and through these lines am sending it to all beating hearts longing for freedom and dignity. I am sending it to all who are zealous for their land.
I am sending it to the conscience of every Arab and Muslim, and to every human being in this world who feels the suffering of our people in Palestine. I hope that this story will move the feelings of all Muslims and everyone in the world. I am convinced that such a story will be beneficial to our country and our people. I ask Allah to protect us, our families, all Muslims and everyone in the world.
I am the daughter of wounded Palestine. I am Hajah Thuraya Ahmad Hasan Ghannam of Palestinian nationality, born in 1936 (later recorded born in 1930 by the Red Cross, due to lack of paperwork). I was born in Tira Haifa to a family consisting of my father, my mother and sisters. My mother Aisha was married to one of the villagers whose name was Qasim, and she had two daughters, Alia and Mariam.
After the death of my uncle Qasim, my mother married my father, Ahmad and she had four more daughters, my sisters Rhea, Fatima and Amenah and me, named Thuraya. We were a simple and poor family and lived in a modest house. When I was ten years old I used to walk around the neighborhood with my family in Palestine. I remember each day as clearly as if I were seeing it today.
Why wouldn't I remember it? It was my country where I grew up and lived my childhood. I used to live in Tira, Haifa and walk around the neighborhood with my family until the Zionist militias received support from the British and bombed our areas with everything they had of hardware and military power. They attacked us violently by land, sea and air. Their attacks targeted ordinary citizens and innocent civilians who did not have any weapons to defend themselves. They had only their faith in God. Moreover, I remember the days when the village of Tira fell to the Zionists, with the support of the British. The fall of Haifa city as a whole, as well as the fall of Akka were not until April 1948, which led to the fall of our village, Tira nearby. This resulted in the displacement of many families to the nearby villages that had not yet fallen to the Zionist enemy, like Ain Ghazal and Ajzim. I was displaced with my small family and sought safety in the village of Ain Ghazal where we rented a small house where we stayed for a time until we built a small room and lived in it with my whole family for nearly two months. We used to sit and spend time with my uncles in their homes, because they owned houses of their own. After some time, relatives from Tira came to visit us and told us the story of the suffering that they faced in Haifa during the displacement. They came on foot to see us and reassure us. Their trip to us took three days. In fact we were surprised by their arrival in the village of Ain Ghazal. Of course, my father, my mother and my sisters welcomed them and washed away their fatigue with water in our small house, which we had built of mud with our own hands.
In Ain Ghazal, another story
After a short time, as we were dreaming of our return to our houses in Tira, we were shocked by the Zionist aircrafts bombing our houses in Ain Ghazal. We fled to the mountains to hide from the brutal shelling and hid under
