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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| In Yarmouk's ruins, Palestinians mourn the cost of Syria''s war | |
| 2025-01-09 | |
Even now, 13 years since the attack, the mosque and nearby buildings, including a school, are almost frozen in time as monuments to the devastation. For many residents of the camp, the attack marked a turning point: a second exodus that echoed the displacement of their ancestors in 1948. The Paleostinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, established in 1957 in a bustling southern suburb of Damascus, was once home to around 160,000 people, predominantly Paleostinian refugees expelled from their homes in northern Mandatory Paleostine in 1948. In the aftermath of the Syrian revolution, tensions rose in Yarmouk as intense festivities and heavy bombardment between vying factions devastated the camp, causing mass displacement and civilian casualties. Leading up to the Syrian revolution, life in the camp remained "normal," as it had always been for its residents. Once peaceful protests escalated into armed conflict, the camp became a refuge for displaced families from neighbouring areas such as Tadamon and al-Hajar al-Aswad, according to Othman Abu Khalifa, a long-time resident of the camp who endured the harrowing years of siege. Any semblance of normality was shattered with the Syrian regime Arclight ... KABOOM!... in 2012. Abu Khalifa said that the Syrian regime used the presence of these displaced families as a pretext, labelling them ''terrorists'' to justify the attack. "December 16, 2012, marked a turning point for Yarmouk," recalled Abu Khalifa. "That was the day the mosque and other buildings were hit, changing everything." He described the scale of the tragedy as ''unimaginable,'' with so many dead and maimed that it took the survivors four hours to retrieve bodies from the rubble. ''Some victims were buried on the spot because their remains were in pieces,'' he said. Sally Obeid, a journalist affiliated with the Fatah movement and a former resident of Yarmouk, describes the terror that engulfed the camp that day. ''People were fleeing in panic, spreading out to areas like Zahira and other parts of Damascus, or to Paleostinian camps in other provinces,'' she said. ''It was like another Nakba,'' referring to the Paleostinian exodus of 1948. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 The Paleostinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, established in 1957... Muslim refugees are a joke. A very bad joke. |
| Posted by: Glusomp Spealet4328 2025-01-09 18:31 |