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| Leila Giries' home in the Palestinian village of Ein Karem before and after it was destroyed in the 1948 war. Credit: Courtesy Leila Giries |
'Everyone needs to see 'Farha''
Not
a day goes by that Giries doesn't wonder what life would have been like
if her family was not forced to leave their home in Ein Karem, now part
of Jerusalem.
"When
I went back 37 years later, I realized I remembered every single house
and building that used to be there," Giries said. "That's how many times
I traveled to Palestine in my mind, every single day, wanting to go
back home."
She
still has the bag her mother grabbed for her as they ran for their
lives while the village burned, she said. It's framed and hanging on a
wall in her California home, alongside the key to her family's
Palestinian home, which was reduced to rubble.
Like
most Palestinian refugees, Giries is forbidden from returning to live
in Israel. Many Palestinian refugees and their descendants -- which the United Nations
says now number 5 million people -- live in UN camps established in
neighboring countries. Others are internally displaced throughout the
Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
Mahmoud
Salah, another survivor of al-Nakba, said the violence depicted in
"Farha" was eerily similar to what he saw as he fled from the
Palestinian village of Sar'a. After his family was expelled, they
traveled by foot for six months, sheltering in caves and under trees as
they searched for food and safety. He remembers every detail of that
journey, from flyers dropped from airplanes urging Palestinians to flee,
to the screams of villagers who lost loved ones.
To
this day, Salah says he still thinks about life before al-Nakba,
memories vivid with the beautiful colors of his homeland. "Since the day
we were forced to leave, my eyes have been searching, searching for my
village, for the books I left behind, for what of mine has been taken
and destroyed," Salah, 90, told CNN from his home in Orland Park, a
suburb of Chicago.
He said having his experience denied for so long only added to the pain and anger. "That feeling of being forced out of our home, our country, will never leave us.... READ MORE
Written by Alaa Elassar, CNN
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/farha-palestinian-film-nakba-darin-sallam-reaj/index.html
AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TOT THE ORIGINAL LINK TO READ THE STORY IN FULL
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Palestinians relive the raw and painful history of al-Nakba in Netflix's new film 'Farha' |
