Areej Ja’fari

My new birthday


I am a third generation of the Palestinian Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland by Zionist forces. I now feel that I am a very lucky person. I never felt lucky before my new birthday: the day I visited my destroyed original village of Deir Rafat, where my grandfather and his family lived before they were forced out in 1948. Areej Ja’fari writes from Deheisheh refugee camp.