ISRAEL: Israeli Arabs displaced from their town demand to return 66 years on

Record ID: 398556

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli Arabs displaced from their town demand to return 66 years on
  • Date: 6th May 2014
  • Summary: BUROM, ISRAEL (MAY 3, 2014) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF CHURCH, WHICH IS WAS NOT DEMOLISHED DURING 1948 WAR BELL RINGING FOR PRAYER MAN RINGING BELL OF CHURCH SIGN ON WALL READING (Arabic) 'BUROM' VARIOUS OF CHRISTIANS, WHO ARE ORIGINALLY FROM BUROM VILLAGE, PRAYING INSIDE CHURCH BIBLE IN CHURCH VARIOUS OF PEOPLE PRAYING
  • Embargoed: 21st May 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA34452ATSO0HQI025DA6T5BIGQ
  • Story Text: Israeli-Arabs who fled the village of Burom in 1948 gathered with their families in their ancestral lands on Saturday (May 3).
    The Christian Palestinians were made to flee their village during the 1948 war which led to the establishment of Israel.
    Now, 66 years on, dozens of former residents and their families gather every Saturday in their hometown to pray, with some people setting up camp and demanding that Israel let them revive their village.
    Eighty one-year-old Ibrahim Issa, who was born in Burom, said that residents were first asked by the Israeli army to leave the village for two weeks.
    The residents, who were only allowed to take a few of their belongings, moved to nearby village of Jesh waiting to be allowed to return.
    "They told us to go to Jesh village for fifteen days, you will be back when it is safe in the border. The Syrian, Lebanese and Arab army were still on the border. People said it is ok for 15 days to go to Jesh, so they left their homes and went to Jesh. The (Israeli) army put the old people, children and women in cars and took them to Jesh," Issa said.
    The village, which was home to around 1,000 people in 1948, was then declared a closed military area and the villagers were forbidden to go back.
    "This is what happened, we stayed for fifteen days. Around 20 to 30 people stayed in the village to take care of the church and the houses. People left their things in their homes. For four or five months, after that they closed the area claiming it is a closed military area. So we stayed in Jesh and village was a closed military area," he added.
    Issa said that he now returns every couple of weeks to hold a mass and demand the right to return.
    Some the resident's grandchildren, many of whom were born in different cities and villages, launched a campaign last summer called 'I announce my return', setting up camps in the village.
    One of the organisers for the campaign, Wassim Ghantous, said that Israeli police ordered them to leave, but they decided to file a petition to stay.
    He said that they also held educational and musical events and marked religious holidays in the village.
    "We said that returning here, to protest and live here, creates an atmosphere of hope. People meet each other and live with each other. We organise concerts and theatre plays, we mark the Nakba day and land's day, religious events such as Christmas and Easter. We organise these here where people can meet," Ghantous said.
    The residents of Burom took their case to Israel's Supreme Court in 1951, which ruled that they must be permitted to return to the village.
    But in 1953 after the ruling, Israeli soldiers demolished the village, leaving only the church and walls of houses.
    "As you can see today, the houses are destroyed. You can see some walls. After they destroyed the area, maybe through air strikes, the ceilings of the houses were destroyed but we could still recognise the houses. Each family used to mark the Nakba day in their own house, eat and drink and teach the children about our homeland, our house, our people. I was raised like this," said Riad Maroun, a villager born four years after his parents fled the village.
    In 1948, the year of Israel's founding, some 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes during events Palestinians refer to as the Nakba or "catastrophe". Most refugees, who number around five million, live in camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
    Unlike most refugees, the residents of Burom hold Israeli citizenship. Some 1.6 million Arabs are citizens of Israel, and they comprise a fifth of the Jewish state's total population.
    jrs/rw/jrc
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