[List of speakers] [Previous Speaker] [Next Speaker]

Photo
Na'ila Zaru', Old City, Jerusalem, April 1999
Photo: Leena Saraste

Na'ila Zaru', Old City, Jerusalem, March 30, 1999:

Evicted from the same old building that Hajji Rafiqa is still living in, Na'ila is temporarily housed when we visit her with her teen-age son in a nearby public health clinic. She's a much younger woman than the Hajji, and shows a much greater level of stress. Leena photographs her sitting among the suit-cases that contain her belongings. She tells how she returned from Amman to find all her clothes in the street where the settlers had thrown them after taking possession of her home. The clinic's hospitality is only temporary. The committee that runs it intends to open it to the public next month, and has asked her to leave. She has nowhere to go, no alternative accommodation. Renting is out of her reach, given uncontrolled rents, low salaries and high unemployment. She seems close to despair.

Nai`la Zaru` speaks:
"My name is Na'ila Zaru'. I was born in Jerusalem, in the house that was taken. I and my brothers and sisters have lived in that house for seventy or eighty years. We grew up in the [Old] City and we all went to school in the City. I finished the 'towjihi' and studied business

administration for a year. Then, you know how each brother and sister go their own way. Each of us who wanted to get further education had to go outside. One went to America, one went to Jordan. I stayed with my mother. There came a day when my mother became ill. I put her in hospital, a Jewish hospital. Her leg was broken, but they couldn't operate on her because she had diabetes. We had to take her to Amman. My brother was exiled, he couldn't enter the country. He said, 'Bring her, and put her in hospital in the Madina Tibbiya'. So we took her to the hospital there. During her stay in the hospital, we stayed three months in Amman. While we there, my sister who lives here near the Semiramis [Jerusalem] phoned us and said, 'The Jews have taken the house'. The key was with my sister's house, and with my uncle's house, they both lived near us...I told her, 'We can't come now. Maybe in two weeks, when the doctor releases her from hospital. But I can't leave her alone'. The Jewish settlers came right into the heart of the house, they broke down the doors, and stole all the furniture from the house. And then they took photos of the house empty..."

Photo
Na'ila Zaru' with her son, Old City, Jerusalem, April 1999
Photo: Leena Saraste
More photos

[Adele Andre] [Sara Odeh]


Copyright©2005

[List of speakers] [Previous Speaker] [Next Speaker]