ABSTRACT
Introduction In 2007, Um Saleh commemorated her sixtieth year in exile. Now 75 years old, she was born in Lydda, now the site of Israel’s main airport. She remembers that it had lemons, olives, figs and gooseberries. It also had schools and hospitals although, she said, girls did not usually attend school. She stayed at home with her family and did not learn to read or write. Um Saleh left Palestine when she was 14 years old, without her parents; they went to Jordan and she never saw them again. She was married in Lebanon and gave birth to five sons and five daughters. The family lived in Tell al-Zaatar refugee camp in Beirut; in 1976, her husband and three of her sons were killed during the siege and massacre that destroyed the camp. She moved to Damour, then Raouche in Beirut and in 1986, after the camp wars, she moved to the Gaza Building, a former hospital located in Sabra, an impoverished neighbourhood of Lebanese and Palestinians, situated next to the Palestinian Shatila refugee camp in Beirut.
