Al-Maliha village is located at the mountain slopes of southern Occupied Jerusalem 5 km away from the center of the holy city. Its inhabitants were displaced in 1948 Nakba and over the years it has become one of occupied Jerusalem’s suburbs.
We shall never forget
Before the 1948 Nakba the village’s population was 2000 but today the number increased to 15000. Most of them live in Bethlehem province few kilometers away from their village which the Israeli occupation has turned into an economic and political center that contains many Israeli governmental buildings luxurious houses and companies.
The refugee Sheikh Juma’a said “All these changes will not make us forget our village and with each passing year we get more attached to it. It is the land where our parents and grandparents died and were buried.”
He added that the village’s cemetery is still there despite the fact that the Israeli occupation forces swept away a large part of it. All this cannot erase its history he affirmed.
A right that will be restored
Sheikh Juma’a 91 has been living in Doheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem since he and his family were displaced from al-Maliha village in 1948 and he still enjoys a good health and memory.
Juma’a left Palestine in 1940 to Cairo where he stayed for 5 years to study the Quran sciences before he returned to his village in 1945 and witnessed the Nakba three years later.
He said that it is true that the Palestinian people are tired of the heavy burdens they have been carrying all these years and of the unknown fate they are facing today in the absence of any real solution. However he stressed “No right will be lost as long as it is pursued and all the coming generations will not forget their right.”
He pointed out that even when the old generations who witnessed the Nakba die the Palestinian cause will remain alive because it is the cause of a people and a nation that is passed from one generation to another until all rights are restored.
