With a slow and delicate gesture, Sewar Qazzaz pours the tea. With her older sister, Zaina, they unfolded a table and sat on the roof of their building which serves as a terrace, in the cool of an autumn night, far from the noise of the world. The youngest, who has just celebrated her 15th birthday, started a song by Edith Piaf. She hums and wiggles. Above them, the clouds drift in thick masses, clinging to the hills and partly veiling the unsightly buildings on the outskirts of Ramallah, in the heart of the West Bank.
From this perch, on a clear day, beyond the valleys to the west, one can see the sea, whose mist merges with the blue sky, and, just ahead, the silhouettes of the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv, in Israel. Further south, about a hundred kilometers from Ramallah, invisible, is the Gaza Strip. The two girls, who recently moved to the West Bank with their mother, Reem Redwan (her maiden name), 48, grew up there. Their father stayed behind.
In their memories, their grandparents’ garden, in the middle of Gaza City itself, is the central setting. In a rushed delivery, Zaina, 20 years old, portrays her grandfather, in a long traditional white dress and her head surrounded by a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf. “He got up at 5 a.m., had a breakfast of bread, zaatar [un mélange d’épices à base de thym], olives and olive oil from its olive trees, with tea. Then he would inspect every meter of his land. » His sister, nearby, slumps in her chair and discreetly wipes away silent tears. “You’re going to think I’m weird. One moment I’m laughing, the next I’m crying. We’re like that in Gaza.” she whispers.
An eternal refugee status
Jeddu Bitter and jida Na’ama (“grandfather” Amer and “grandmother” Na’ama), as the girls call their maternal grandparents, were killed in an Israeli bombardment in Gaza on October 10, in retaliation for the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, along with their youngest child, Hussein, 36, and a family friend. The beautiful orange house and the garden where the patriarch had planted beans and vines are nothing more than a pile of gray rubble. In the midst of mourning, their children and grandchildren strive to share their legacy: the unconditional love they dedicated to a land and a homeland, Palestine, which was constantly denied to them. In the family, this cause and this attachment have crossed generations and founded the identity of their descendants.
You have 95% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.