In July 1948, during the holy month of Ramadan, Lydda and Al Ramle were occupied and their inhabitants, about seventy thousand then, were expelled to the West Bank. People were forced to flee their homes in the heat of the summer after the Dahmash mosque massacre. With the exception of the local people who had very poor weapons, very little effort was made to save these towns, including on the part of King Abdullah’s forces. The King wanted to transfer the West Bank to Jordan, and he even collaborated with the Zionist leaders to achieve this goal.2 The plan was to rid the Gaza Strip of refugees by making them go to Egypt, and then the Gaza Strip, like the northern part of Palestine, would become part of Israel with little to no Palestinians; in return, Israel would agree to give him the West Bank and East Jerusalem and would not attack it.3
Israel attacked the Gaza Strip in the hope of frightening the large number of refugees who had found shelter in Gaza into continuing on to Egypt. There was a big battle on December 25, 1948, when Israeli planes attacked Khan Younis and adjacent areas near Al Ma’in, targeting Egyptian army posts and the refugee areas. In fact, they attacked everywhere, but the Egyptian army, the Fedayeen, and the people of a place called hill 86, north of Al Ma’in, fought bravely and defeated the Israeli soldiers and prevented them from entering the Strip.4 There was a brave Egyptian officer of Sudanese origin who should be mentioned: Ahmad Fouad Sadek, the commander of the Egyptian army in the Gaza Strip who succeeded General Mawawi, the commanding officer of the Egyptian forces in Palestine. Sadek had orders from the Egyptian government to withdraw to Al ’Arish to save the life of his forces because there was little hope of defeating the Israelis with his small number of fighters. But he refused. He wasn’t only responsible for the lives of the Egyptian soldiers, but also for the lives of Gaza’s inhabitants and the protection of hundreds of thousands of refugees, so he decided to continue fighting until the end. He defeated the Israelis and they withdrew from the area east of Khan Younis. Sadek saved Gaza and its people, but he lost his position because he had not followed orders. However, he didn’t care and was satisfied that he had done the right thing. Later, he was promoted when he returned to his headquarters in Egypt. He died a few years ago and was given a big funeral because he was a very popular and brave man. So, both King Abdullah and General Mawawi, who was responsible for the loss of a great part of Palestine to the Israelis, among other Arab leaders, could be accused of betraying the Palestinian people.
Soon after the war, the refugees couldn’t find places to live, so we opened up the schools as shelters for them and put two families in each classroom, separated by blankets. People even lived in mosques and fields. Every day, my father organized for a sack of wheat to be ground and made into bread, which he then distributed to hungry people. Then the Quakers came to help the refugees and distributed tents and erected them on the sands in the western part of Khan Younis, which was empty then. Once, I was walking home and saw soft and beautiful refugee girls and women collecting rubbish and wood from the streets of Khan Younis for their cooking fires. This scene made me very angry, and I began thinking about how I could help them. Then I had an idea and spoke to Basheer Al Rayyis about finding them a place to study. This was when the Quakers were helping the refugees, before the UNRWA existed.5
I told him about the big open area in front of the school where the students played, and I said that I wanted to ask the Quakers for some of the tents they were distributing to refugees so I could gather the girls and teach them there. I wanted to write leaflets telling people to bring their daughters from five to twenty years old to study, and I would classify them according to their age and level. He asked me if I could handle this, and I answered that of course I could. Two days later, he brought other respected community leaders, including Abd Al Haq Abd Al Shafi, a Palestinian chief engineer and the brother of Dr. Haidar Abd Al Shafi, and Mr. Ramiz Mosmar, a Khan Younis Sharia judge, and we discussed the subject. I told them I was planning to divide this new school into separate morning and afternoon shifts, with two schools to every shift, so I would have four schools in addition to the school where I already taught.
After the leaflets were distributed, many girls of different ages came and we registered them. Some had attended schools in Jaffa or other towns and had stopped going because of the war, others had never been to school, and others were due to start school that year. At that time, I had fifteen hundred new students, and my school only had eight teachers, apart from myself, and we worked until 1:30 PM every day. I thought about the number in every class and how many schools it would take to include this number of new students. The Quakers brought tents, and I divided the number of students into four schools: two in the morning and two in the afternoon, so every school had about three hundred and fifty students. Then I thought about teachers. I had been teaching for seven years and many clever girls had passed the seventh class, so I thought that they could teach the new students. I also thought about the girls who were studying at the teachers’ training college in Ramallah and who hadn’t finished because of the war, and among them was my sister Nadida. The course had now become a four-year program, and she had finished her third year, while others were in their second and fourth years. So, I sent for all of them and told them about the idea of volunteering to teach the new students. I also told them that my sister would be with them and promised that I would try my best to give them employment at the end. The inclusion of my sister encouraged them to agree, as they thought that I had included her because I was sure they would obtain work. Then I went to every house with a clever student who had finished the seventh class to discuss the idea of working as a volunteer teacher for the refugee students. I collected thirty-six teachers and divided them into four groups of nine, and then the Quakers gave us exercise books, pens, pencils, blackboards, and some chairs. So, every class had a tent, a teacher with a board, a chair, and some chalk, and the students sat on the sand or on mats, and we began.
I supervised these schools between 1948 and 1949, and especially the teachers, because most of them hadn’t studied the methodology of teaching, psychology, or education. I received food supplies of sugar, flour, rice, oil, and sometimes smoked fish from the Quakers for the school, so I bought scales and small bags and divided everything into thirty-six small bags to encourage and motivate the teachers, and after a time they became better than qualified teachers.
At the same time, Ibrahim began to send people to ask for my hand in marriage, and at the end of 1949, Basheer Al Rayyis was astonished when I wrote my resignation. How could I resign and leave this work? He told me that I now had the chance to marry and teach as well, because we were under Egyptian administration and their laws didn’t prevent married women from working. I told him that I couldn’t, even if I was paid one thousand pounds per month. I could either be headmistress or housewife, but I couldn’t be both. I was then supervising the five schools and started work before 7:00 AM and finished at 4:30 PM every day. How could I do a good job if I didn’t have time for my house? I also thought that if I became pregnant, how could I go to school with a big belly? I am very shy. I didn’t even tell my family until I was six months pregnant, and by then they knew from my appearance. I knew I couldn’t go to school when I was pregnant, so I told Basheer Al Rayyis to find someone to replace me. He asked who would administer the other four schools and I assured him I could find someone, because among the teachers were former teachers and headmistresses who had worked in the north but stopped because of the war. I chose four headmistresses and a replacement for the original school because I couldn’t find anyone to work my hours, and they got started.
When the UNRWA began in Khan Younis, they found that there was already an existing nucleus of schools for refugees. They met with the volunteer teachers and promised that if they continued studying and completed tawjihi, they could later have a permanent contract, together with benefits. All the teachers agreed, and they were paid monthly from that time, and some of them continued further and graduated from university
. Some time ago, I read that the UNRWA was established on December 8, 1949, one month after I left the school and married. So, I can say that I prepared and organized, by myself, the nucleus of the refugee schools from mid-1948 to the end of 1949, without the help of the UNRWA because it hadn’t yet been established. After that, the UNRWA became responsible for the refugee schools. I thank God I had this idea, and I thank God I found people to help me implement it.
3 / Marriage
FROM TIME TO TIME, I wrote poems and articles that were published in Al Risala and Al Thaqafa, Egyptian magazines, but after I was married, I stopped writing because I became busy with Ibrahim and the children, although I still write in my diary every day. Ibrahim used to sit with his friends in front of a shop close to our school, and he would see me when I passed every day on my way to and from school. While he was reading a magazine one day, he saw my name, and after he read my poem, he asked his friend if it was possible that the small girl, Madeeha Albatta, who was famous for her ironed uniform and white collar, and was the only girl who wore shoes, could write good poems and articles like this? His friend said that, yes, she writes in this magazine. He was surprised by the pessimism in my writing after he read my pieces called “The Autumn,” “A Bird and Other Birds,” and “A Withered Rose.”
In “A Withered Rose,” I wrote:
Oh, beautiful rose, the symbol of life and love.
Why are you so withered when life is still open for you?
You used to smile and give life, but now you are changed.
How can you give life to your thorns, then die?
So, after Ibrahim read the pieces that I had written, he sent me a letter without including his full name.
On January 15, 1948, my father brought me a number of letters. That morning, I prayed the dawn prayer and then slept again, and had a strange dream in which I saw myself standing in the square in front of the Khan Younis mosque, in front of the castle.1 A lion was walking in a circle looking at me while people watched and clapped their hands, and every time he completed the circle, he came closer to where I stood. When he looked at me, I stepped back, and then he circled again and repeated the same thing. Then suddenly he took me and flew into the sky and told me not to be afraid because there was nothing to be afraid of. Then I opened my eyes.
I got out of bed and put a pot of milk on the fire to boil while I thought deeply about the dream, and the milk boiled over and spilled without my realizing it. Then my father gave me the letters. As headmistress, I received many letters every day from the education department, and as I went through them, I saw one from Khan Younis and was sure it was from the parents of a girl who had been sent home the day before, and so it would be full of bad words. I thought about whether to drink the milk or read the letter, but I left it because if it contained bad words, I would lose my appetite. When I opened the letter, it was signed with Ibrahim’s initial and his family name of Abu Sitta. In his letter, he asked why I was pessimistic in my writing and wondered how a young woman at the beginning of her life would write like this, speaking about autumn and withered flowers and other sad subjects. Finally, he wrote that he hoped that I would remove the black glasses from my eyes forever.
The Abu Sitta family lived in the village of Al Ma’in, an area of 55,000 dunams (about 14,000 acres) situated east of Abasan, a village of Khan Younis and part of the Beersheba district. Before the 1948 war, the Abu Sitta children walked to school, which Sheikh Hussein Abu Sitta, Ibrahim’s father, built in 1920 at his own expense. The teachers at the school taught the first four years of education. After completing school there, the sons of Beersheba Sheikhs were sent to a boarding school in the town of Beersheba. Others went to the Khan Younis school and took lodging at the home of Al Haj Abdallah Al Aqqad from Saturday to Wednesday and returned home for the weekend on Wednesday afternoon.
Sheikh Hussein was a well-known figure who did not have a formal education, but had taught himself to read and write. Sitting at various kuttabs run by Muslim scholars, he expanded his knowledge through reading the Quran, newspapers, and books on various subjects. He inherited his position (as a Sheikh) from a long line of ancestors who were also Sheikhs. His great great grandfather, Sheikh Dahshan, was a paramount Sheikh among tribes in Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt. Sheikh Hussein first got married during World War I. He had five children: Harba, Mousa, Ali, Salman, and Nadia. Around 1919, Sheikh Hussein’s brother Mousa died and left behind a widow and two children, Abdallah and Salma. As was the custom, he married his brother’s widow, and she subsequently bore him two sons: Ibrahim and Suleiman. His sons were the first Palestinians to study at Egyptian universities: Ibrahim was the first Palestinian student in the faculty of law at Fu’ad University (later named Cairo University), Suleiman was the first in the faculty of medicine, Ali was the first in the engineering faculty, and Mousa was the first in agriculture. Many people told Sheikh Hussein to marry off Ibrahim when he finished school in Jerusalem because he was the oldest son. However, Sheikh Hussein said that Ibrahim could marry at any time, but the chance to study was only given once in a lifetime, and he was not going to allow Ibrahim to start his life until he had finished his studies and obtained his degree. After Ibrahim graduated in 1947, he trained at a lawyer’s office in Jerusalem, but during the 1948 war travel to Jerusalem was difficult, so he stayed in Khan Younis and planned to open a law office.
After I read the letter, I thought for two days before deciding to write back, and this was the beginning of the exchange of letters between us. Ibrahim’s youngest brother Salman and my brother Nadid were both in the sixth class, so Ibrahim gave Salman letters to send to me through Nadid and I sent him letters the same way. Then Salman went to Egypt to study, so we sent letters through the female porter of my school, who became the postman between us. When we exchanged letters, he said he wanted to see me, but I wrote that this couldn’t happen because I couldn’t abuse my father’s trust. If he wanted to see me, I wrote, he should first go to my father, so Ibrahim went to my father’s closest friend and asked him to speak to my father about our becoming engaged. When I knew that Ibrahim wanted to see my father, I wrote to him: “Don’t think I am tall with white skin and blonde hair. I am not like that at all.” In fact, I wanted him to know so he wouldn’t be shocked after our marriage, especially because I was very thin and only weighed forty-six kilograms.
He wrote back: “I know everything about you and I still remember your big, pure black eyes, full of intelligence and innocence. The only thing I wanted to know was your heart, and now after I know this, your image has become very clear to me and I feel I know you very well. Who told you I worship statues?”
A short time after this the subject was closed, because the Jewish militia attacked Al Ma’in and drove the entire Abu Sitta clan from their land after burning their houses. Ibrahim’s family then rented a house in Khan Younis, two houses away from us. On May 15, 1948, the British Mandate ended, and all the British offices and departments closed, and problems spread all over Palestine. Altogether, I wrote sixty letters to Ibrahim and he replied to all of them. I still have all the letters I received from him, and also the draft of the first letter I wrote, because I was unsure about whether or not to write and what to write. Ibrahim lost the first fifteen letters because they burned up with their house in Al Ma’in.
Madeeha Hafez Albatta in Gaza in 1955. The photo was taken in a studio in Gaza City. Photo courtesy of Madeeha’s family.
My father was very strict when I was engaged, because I had refused to marry one of my relatives and insisted on marrying Ibrahim. Perhaps he was strict because I didn’t have my mother to speak on my behalf, and I was the first daughter to be married. Even after the marriage contract was signed, my father refused to let us see each other or meet; he did not allow Ibrahim to give me a ring, but instead his sister-in-law, in accordance with my father’s instructions, put it on my finger. Until our wedding day, Ibrahim hadn’t seen my face at all or met me alone, and the only time he had ever seen me wa
s when I walked to and from school. I used to cover my face with a long heavy veil in accordance with the social customs at that time; in fact, I kept my face covered the whole time my father was alive and even after I was married. Later, when we moved to Gaza, Ibrahim convinced me to replace it with a shorter one of lighter material, and all my sisters did the same thing when they saw me, and my father didn’t comment. But all of this changed with my sisters. All of their fiancés gave them rings and visited them, and they sat together and had dinner together. I only wanted Ibrahim, so I didn’t argue with my father about these details. I knew that, in the end, we would be together and then could sit and have dinner whenever we wanted. I was patient and didn’t care too much about not meeting him before our marriage.
I knew many people, among them women from Jaffa who were experienced in sewing, and when I became engaged, refugee girls and women from Jaffa helped me prepare the necessary new clothes for my marriage. At that time, Jaffa was a modern city, a hub of Palestinian culture and economy, and famous for sewing, embroidery, and its high standards of fashion compared to southern Palestine. These women and girls, whom I had gotten to know when I registered the refugees for the school, embroidered all my clothes, underwear, and other things needed by a new bride, as well as my white dress and the burnous to cover the dress. I still have the burnous and when my daughters became teenagers, they used to wear it secretly.
A White Lie Page 8