Nakba #31 - Kamil al-Shaykh Qasim

1946 "We were farmers and grew wheat, olives, fruit and tobacco. Our tobacco was well-known, it was on a level with the Greek. We had different names for each area of land, depending on what we grew on it. Sometimes we slept in the fields. The land is our life, it is more important than the houses, better than working in a factory." 1948 "I was in fourth grade. We were used to the Zionists attacking us. We used to flee a bit away from the village and stay in an olive grove. When things calmed down, we returned to our house. We had received reinforcement from a volunteer Arab force from Syria. But after a while it got worse and the Arab force left us to our fate. We heard stories of how Jewish soldiers killed women and children in other villages. I remember the planes that attacked the village. One of the pilots shot at a woman in a wheelchair. At the same time we were attacked on the ground by Jewish soldiers. Chaos and panic broke out among thousands of villagers. We fled on foot to Lebanon. We brought one of our horses and loaded some mattresses. I myself was wearing shorts. When we passed Safad we heard that the city had been occupied by the Zionists. Then we started running. We were attacked from the air and by Jewish soldiers on the ground. Even when we sat under the olive trees they came and shot at us. Some who returned to the village were killed. That's what we heard. In Lebanon we sold the horse. We needed the money. We took a freight train from Tyre to Aleppo in Syria. At each station along the way, they emptied one or two wagons of refugees, so that not all refugees ended up in the same place. In Aleppo we were first placed in al-Nayrab, an old French military camp, which was next to the airport. Then we had to move into Aleppo. There we got to live in a building that had previously been a hospital." Afterthought - Doesn’t the feeling for your lost land disappear with the years? “On the contrary, it remains, and we inherit that feeling from parents to children and grandchildren.” - As a lawyer, do you want compensation for your lost land, or do you want the land back? "I want the land (laughs). The land is a person's life. We don't sell any land, no houses. I am not a seller. I sell nothing. We inherit the land from generation to generation. I am still a refugee. I have no country, no passport, no rights. I don't know what happened to my schoolmates. I never got to finish fourth grade."