In this video produced by Miftah, Mahmoud Salhiya “Ekramawi” tells his story, and also the story of perpetual exile as experienced by generations of Palestinians.
Mahmoud was a resident of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem until he was forcibly expelled in 2021 by Israeli police.
This was not the family’s first encounter with displacement and expulsion, as they had been expelled from the village of ‘Ayn Karim, depopulated in 1948, and had taken shelter in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jordanian Jerusalem, only for history to repeat itself more than 70 years later, as the family found itself, yet again, in exile.
Not only were Mahmoud and his family thrown out of their home and into police detention, but their belongings were also vandalized, and their house was eventually demolished. They were not even allowed to keep their family photos.