Region | Palestinian Territories
95-year-old man's last wish is to go home to Palestine
"The only place where I want to go is my hometown. I just want to live whatever is left of my life there," Mahmoud Mutawa Mabrouk, a refugee at the Jerash Camp, said.
- By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief
- Published: 00:00 November 4, 2009
- The only place where I want to go is my hometown. I just want to live whatever is left of my life there..., Mahmoud Mutawa Mabrouk says.
- Image Credit: Supplied
Manama: A 95-year-old Palestinian who has never ventured beyond his one-square kilometre refugee camp in Jordan since 1968 said that he wanted to live his last days in his hometown.
"The only place where I want to go is my hometown. I just want to live whatever is left of my life there," Mahmoud Mutawa Mabrouk, a refugee at the Jerash Camp, said.
"I constantly dream about going home. I have my plot of land there."
The story of his life is typical of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled or forced to flee under the onslaught of the Israeli aggression in 1948 and 1967.
"I was made to leave my village in the Valley of Hanin in Ramla during the fear and mayhem of 1948 and went to the West Bank. However, in 1967, I had to live through a new flight and this time I went to Jordan," he said.
He has since then lived in Jerash Camp, known locally as Gaza Camp in the north of Jordan, never venturing outside its confines. His wife died 10 years ago, but he has refused to re-marry or even to be assisted by the wives of his 10 children or by his grandchildren who live nearby.
"I am in good shape and thank God I do not suffer from any illnesses," he said.
His home in the camp is across the cemetery. "I have witnessed all the funerals of the people I had known. I know everybody who lives in the camp and I always pray for the dead," he told 3aed.net, a local internet radio station.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Jerash camp was set up as an "emergency" camp in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees and displaced persons who left the Gaza Strip as a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Most of the inhabitants were originally refugees since 1948. UNRWA rented the land for 99 years when they arrived 42 years ago.
Today, the camp is home to around 24,100 refugees. It has four preparatory and elementary schools for 4,839 pupils and one food distribution centre. Classes take up to 70 pupils at a time and, in some cases, run twice and three times while the students wait outside to have their turn.
The Social Safety Net Programme, under UNRWA, provides assistance for 570 families.
A social activist said that around 1,000 of the dwellers were old people who needed medical care. The camp has no hospital and only one health centre.
Ten official Palestine refugee camps are located in Jordan. They accommodate 337,571 registered refugees, or 17 per cent of the 1.9 million refugees registered with UNRWA in Jordan, mainly members of families who fled during the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
According to Amman-based UNRWA, all Palestine refugees in Jordan have full Jordanian citizenship with the exception of about 120,000 refugees originally from the Gaza Strip, which up to 1967 was administered by Egypt.
They are eligible for temporary Jordanian passports, which do not entitle them to full citizenship rights such as the right to vote and employment with the government.
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