(...) Not all villages, however, were completely depopulated. Some residents in villages like Qaytiyya, near the River Jordan, remained in their homes. The village, located between two tributaries of the Jordan — Al Hasbani and Dan rivers — hoped that normality would return to their once tranquil village when the war ends.
Their fate, however, was worse than that of those who were forced out, or who fled for fear of a terrible fate.
Israeli forces returned nearly a year later, rounded the remaining villagers into large trucks, tortured many and dumped them somewhere south of Safad. Little is known about their fate, but many of those who survived ended up in Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria.
Yarmouk was not established until 1957, and even then it was not an official refugee camp. Many of its inhabitants were squatters in Sahl Al Yarmouk and other areas, before they were brought to Shaghour Al Basatin, near Ghouta. The area was renamed Yarmouk.
Many of Yarmouk’s refugees originate from northern Palestine, the Safad District, and villages like Qaytiyya, Al Ja’ouneh and Khisas. They subsisted in that region for nearly 67 years.
Unable to return to Palestine, yet hoping to do so, they named the streets of their camp, its neighbourhoods, even its bakeries, pharmacies and schools, after villages from which they were once driven out.
When the Syrian uprising turned civil war began, in March 2011, many said that Palestinians in Syria should be spared the conflict. The scars and awful memories of other regional conflicts — the Lebanese civil war, the Iraq invasion of Kuwait and the US invasion of Iraq, during which thousands of Palestinian civilians paid a heavy price — remained in the hearts and minds of many.
But calls for “hiyad” (neutrality) were not heeded by the many parties involved in the war in Syria, and the Palestinian leadership, incompetent and clustered in Ramallah, failed to assess the seriousness of the situation, or provide any moral or political guidance.
The results were horrific. Over 3,000 Palestinians were killed, tens of thousands fled Syria, thousands more became internally displaced and the hopeless journey away from the homeland continued on its horrific course.
Yarmouk — a refugee camp of over 200,000 inhabitants, most of whom registered refugees with the UN agency UNRWA — was reduced to less than 20,000 people.
Much of the camp stands in total ruin. Hundreds of its residents either starved to death or were killed in the war. The rest fled to other parts of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Europe. (...)
