22 December 2023
Since the fateful year of 1948, the Palestinian people have been suffering persecution, occupation and dispossession.
For us Palestinians life froze on 14 May 1948 when we were dispossessed of our homes, so that the Jews could declare the state of Israel on our lands. The source of today’s conflict dates to 1948.
We call that event Nakba. More than 750,000 people were dispossessed from their land and thrown out to the West Bank, Gaza strip, Jordan, Lebanon and other Arab countries, and were refused entry back to their homes in what is now Israel.
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Since occupation in 1967 more than a million Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli jails. More than 50,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished, hundreds of thousands of olive trees uprooted, thousands of children kidnapped in the middle of the night from their homes to Israeli jails, refugee camps sprayed with skunk or tear gas to make life unbearable for the residents, thousands of checkpoints have choked the towns and villages, water has been stolen and sold back to us at exorbitant prices. Palestinian produce has been destroyed to force us to buy Israeli products, olive harvest stolen, trees and water springs poisoned to destroy farmers livelihoods, students have been imprisoned for speaking out, thousands of young and old killed. All to ensure Palestinian lands in the West bank are taken to build the illegal Israeli settlements.
My maternal and paternal grandparents were among those dispossessed in the Nakba. My maternal grandparents were forced to leave Jaffa with nothing, and hired a truck to take them and the young children to Amman, where they stayed for couple of years before they decided to leave and settle in Ramallah. They locked their home and took the key.
My paternal grandparents were not lucky enough to find a truck. They were forced to leave their newly-built home and shop with hardly any possessions, and walked from Ramleh to Ramallah for three days through the mountains. They walked during the night and slept during the day, carrying young children. Thousands walked with them on what was called the Lyd death march. They saw people die on the way.
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My grandparents believed once the fighting ended, they would go back to their homes. So they left everything behind – clothes, furniture, and hid their gold and money inside pillow cases and bed mattresses believing it was safer to leave at home than take it with them. They were told the war would not last more than couple of weeks. They locked their homes and took with them the house key.
The Nakba led in the loss of their home, business, land and their social and familial network that was in Jaffa and Ramleh.
Eventually my grandparents built a life for themselves in Ramallah and their children grew up and had children. They helped build Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus, Gaza and many towns and villages across the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
But my grandmothers never stopped talking about Palestine – to us the grandchildren. They didn’t want us to forget Jaffa and Ramleh and hoped for decades that they would go back to their homes. My grandmother Widad passed away in Sydney 25 years ago, and gave the key to my uncle to pass it down to his son. For us the house key is our land title deed.
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My grandmother is not the only Nana who has been passing down her house key to her children and grandchildren. Millions of Palestinian grandmothers joined in this ritual of passing the key down. The house key became a symbol of Palestinian resistance and quest for justice. At the entrance of many refugee camps in West Bank and Gaza, a large key greets the residents and guests. Our Nakba memorial events feature the house key. For us the key is the truth. The key is testament to our ownership to the homes and land we have been dispossessed of. The truth is the key and the key is that truth.
Therefore, the events of 7 October 2023 cannot be seen as isolated. It was a horror day and the loss of innocent lives and destruction should be condemned. The 75 years of repression, dispossession and persecution has climaxed in 2023. And this injustice cannot be ignored. The sacrifice has been too immense. The international community needs to be fair to the Palestinian people.
Two months into this war and a ceasefire has not occurred. More than 20,000 Palestinians have died most of them women and children and over 52,000 injured, maimed and burnt. Much of Gaza is now destroyed. Infrastructure, schools, hospitals, bakeries, mosques, churches, homes, office buildings, shops, restaurants, universities. The aggression of the Israeli government should be condemned. This is a war crime and the perpetrators need to be prosecuted.
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Our families in Gaza’s two churches – Saint Porphyrius Orthodox church and the Holy Family Catholic church – have been sheltering since the first week of the war. They lost their homes and businesses to the bombardments early in the war. We have been in contact with them hearing one tragic story after another. The bombing of the Orthodox church killed 20 distant relatives, whole families (mum dad and children) and injured 18 family members. The Catholic Church compound housing the injured and disabled was shelled by Israeli tanks last week making it uninhabitable. Mum Nahida Anton and daughter Samar Anton were killed by an Israeli sniper, and seven people were injured my cousin’s husband.
This war has been traumatising for us. Our Palestinian Christian community and the Palestinian Muslims lost immensely dear life and country. We cannot fathom the extent of the bombing. It’s gone beyond self defence and is an act of revenge, mainly on defenceless refugees. They are now made refugees for the seventh time.
Once you see the dispossession since 1948 to 2023, you cannot unsee it. The “conflict” is a front of land grabs and ethnic cleansing.
Christmas is a few days away. I have not listened to Christmas songs and didn’t watch Christmas movies as I usually do. This Christmas we are mourning death and destruction. Our community has been praying for peace on Zoom every night. We are finding solace and strength in Jesus Christ, so that we can find the courage to choose love and peace over the hatred, revenge, anger, and pain that have gripped all of us, be we Palestinians, Israelis, Jews, Muslims or Christians.
Despite the pain of death and destruction, each of us must confront the shadow of injustice and make a personal commitment to justice, striving for peace, equality, and reconciliation.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
Palestinian Christians in Australia pray for peace nightly at 9pm via Zoom.
Suzan was born in Jerusalem and grew up listening to Nakba stories in occupied Ramallah. She is the President of Palestinian Christians in Australia and is an accountant and financial strategist.