Idlib, Syria – In a minute house in northwestern Syria, Muhammad Haninun is glued to his cell phone, following the latest Israeli attacks taking situation in Gaza.
For extra than a month, he has watched movies of the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the displacement of civilians trying to gain away the bombing. The entire whereas, the occasions bring lend a hand determined recollections of what he persisted 75 years ago.
The 80-year-weak can now not support but think concerning the similarities between what he is seeing in Gaza and what he skilled when he and his family had been displaced during the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, in 1948 when Israel used to be created and extra than 750,000 Palestinians had been forcibly uprooted from their land and thousands had been killed.
“The Palestinian tragedy is happening again,” Haninun talked about. “The of us in Gaza are facing war with out receiving any support the an identical as we did sooner than.”
Muhammad Haninun, 80, pictured alongside with his six-year-weak grandson Mahmoud, is determined to come lend a hand to Palestine at some point [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
‘A cracked direct’
Since October 7, when the armed wing of the Palestinian community Hamas, breached the separation wall that surrounds Gaza and attacked southern Israel, Western international locations, led by the US, hastened to sentence the motion that has been running the besieged Gaza Strip since 2006.
The condemnation used to be followed by Western financial and military toughen for Israel, which has been relentlessly bombing Gaza, one in all primarily the most densely populated areas in the sphere, for 35 days. Since October 7, now not less than 10,812 Palestinians, including 4,412 childhood, absorb been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza. Higher than 1,400 of us absorb been killed in Israel.
In an identical blueprint, during the main half of the 20th century, Britain supplied military toughen in the kind of protection and weapons to Zionists, inspired Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine and allowed them to displace an entire bunch of thousands of Palestinians from their homes as they built a brand fresh direct for themselves.
In November 1948, Israelis broken-down airplane to bomb the northern village of Tarshiha in the geographical region of Acre, destroying three homes – including Haninun’s family house – and killing seven of his members of the family.
“Before that, we had evacuated our homes several times for two or three days and returned. We did now not rob anything,” he recalled. “We thought we would return, in particular since we had been unable to gain effectively the ineffective from under the rubble.”
Nonetheless they by no methodology would per chance presumably.
Haninun, then 5 years weak, and four individuals of his family had been forced to inch between seven cities in Lebanon and Syria sooner than they had been allowed to maintain in a refugee camp in Aleppo, a “tragic” setting with a minute room for every and every family, no kitchen, lavatory or running water and shared lavatories.
He remembers Arab radio stations and governments promising Palestinians a like a flash return – after seven days, then after seven weeks, then after seven months, unless extra than seven decades had passed.
“This cracked direct has been playing since 1948, when of us had been fleeing from one village to one more, entirely to face massacres afterwards, because the enemy viewed ‘others’ as animals, and killing them lawful like killing cattle – and this logic is composed the an identical this present day.”
Haninun moved to the Syrian capital, Damascus, to explore history. After this, he worked as a trainer in Aleppo, living in the camp there, unless the Syrian war forced him to hover to Idlib in 2014. Nonetheless what he composed longs for is the probability, at some point, to come lend a hand to Palestine – and to his roots.
“There is composed hope,” Haninun talked about. “If I die sooner than I return to Palestine, I will utter my childhood and grandchildren that you simply have to absorb a correct to that land and we are its correct owners.”
Scouts find in downtown Idlib to utter toughen for Gaza [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
Strengthening the Palestinian motive
On Thursday, the Ain Jalut Scouts and the Syrian Inner most Scouts marched through downtown Idlib, lawful one in all the many activities held in the field over the previous few weeks in toughen of Gaza.
Ayman Muhammad, 40, a displaced Palestinian residing in the northwestern Syrian city and the scout chief of the Ain Jalut community, told Al Jazeera that the injustice that Palestinians absorb persisted for 75 years is the motivation for staging protests in addition to fundraising and providing toughen by strategy of social media.
Israel’s war on Gaza has reinforced the Palestinian motive, Muhammad believes. “This day, the West and the East, from one finish to the other,