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I See Lod
Dedicated
To the spirit of my grandmother, the matriarch of the mothers of martyrs..
Daughter of Lod, Ruqayyah Al-Alami
After the occupation of Ramallah and the rest of Palestine, a bitter sadness loomed over the inhabitants; everything was gloomy, as if time had stopped. Since that day, the vocabulary changed, and words like setback, martyr, occupation, and June War emerged, along with terms like soldier, settler, and patrol.
Who will return our childhood?! Who will return our time?!
Schools remained closed, and people refused to study under occupation or to conduct business in official circles; there was no room for work under military occupation. Patrols roamed the streets of Ramallah, with soldiers aiming their bullets at demonstrators rejecting Israeli dominance over us.
It was June 1967, a summer that lasted until the fall, and the national forces called for studying and working to be the weapon of the Palestinian people in confronting this new reality.
Life resumed; schools were opened, commerce revitalized, and farmers returned to cultivate their land, while vegetable sellers showcased freshly picked produce from the fields of Ramallah's villages and towns.
In the spring of the following year, the winds of longing for the displaced began to translate into visits to the homeland, to check on the homes from which they had been uprooted. They had the keys with them... true, but the homes were inhabited by Jews! How painful it is for a person to look at their house and not even get close to it because the occupier has extended its grasp and settled in, preventing them from approaching.
My sister and I insisted on visiting Lod. Our mother resisted our request; how could she feel safe allowing young girls to enter Palestine? However, the matter eased when she learned that there were two teachers in Ramallah: Dado Al-Khatib, a refugee from Lod, and teacher Widad Hamoudah, a refugee from Lifta, who had arranged trips to occupied Palestine. My mother registered us for the trip. We boarded the bus, and on the way, I cried twice:
Once because I would visit Palestine while it was still unliberated, and a second time because I would enter Lod, my father's birthplace, who left this life still attached to its alleys and neighborhoods. This young man, whose life was stolen by an Israeli airstrike, fell victim in the blink of an eye. He departed from us, but in Lod, he left a home for us in our hearts.
We took the bus from Ramallah, passing through the village of Beitounia to Deir al-Latrun, and the first city we reached was Lod, on a tour highlighting its landmarks, particularly near the lost Lod Airport:
"Because it's our home, my lady, next to the airport, we would hear the hum of planes all night!"
Up close, I see Lod:
The checkpoint, the wall of our house, the school where my father studied, and his workplace at the railway.
"Every year, my lady, we would go to the Church of Al-Khadr during the holiday of 'Lod' where Muslims would gather with Christian pilgrims coming from Ramla, Jaffa, and Nazareth for the feast (of Al-Khadr). There were many seasonal festivities in Lod, my lady, with Prophet Rubin and Prophet Saleh."
Here is the Dahmash Mosque, a witness to a people who were here, and there is the Grand Mosque, the last point where the people of Lod gathered before being displaced and facing an unknown fate.
"My lady, everyone used to come to Jaffa from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon during the orange-picking season to work in the orchards until the end of the season. We had so many oranges that we would bury them in the ground!
The character of Lod remained Palestinian; its identity was not erased, and the scouting movement is still active there to this day. The Orthodox club founded by the ancestors still stands firm.
"My lady, Lod is Arab, and it will remain Arab. We will return, and you will say: 'My lady said so.'"
This visit marked a turning point in the life of a girl who was not yet thirteen, like a second rope that tied me, the first being the love for Lod and its people that my grandmother instilled in my soul.
My name is Ruqayyah,
An unusual and old name... chosen by my father as a blessing in the name of his mother. Since I am older than my twin sister by mere minutes, the name became mine.
I am a daughter of one of the thousands of martyrs who rose during the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a story I began writing from the moment I carried my father's body. The words of its.
By: Ruqayyah Al-Alami
