In these days, 71 years ago, my grandfather, Saber Muhammad Halima (19 years old) and my grandmother Aisha Hussein Qaddura (16 years old), were abandoned from their village of Tarshiha, which is located in the northeastern part of the city of Acre, after heavy shelling led by the terrorist Ebi Natan, and dozens were killed in what was called With “Hiram Operation” which aimed to occupy what remained of the Western Galilee Brigade.
My grandfather completed his studies until the fourth primary school in the village’s only school, but he left it after he hit the principal because of his bias with his son against my grandfather (as my aunt told me), then he worked with his father (who was playing the goddess at weddings too) in selling knives.
As for my grandmother, Aisha, she was the “well-off” of her father, the well-off, because she was born after the death of 3 or 4 children before her, and when her mother gave birth, he decided to name her Aisha .. and she actually lived.
On October 30, 1948, the Zionists stormed the village and occupied it after violent battles in which the people of the village took refuge, and then began the journey of displacement of the fiancées Saber and Aisha in Aleppo, where they got married, but my grandfather’s sister did not fit her in the weather there and she fell ill, so the family decided, after various advice, to go to Beirut . Thus they completed the trip to Beirut, specifically Burj Al-Barajneh.
My grandfather first worked on plowing and cultivating the land, then picking oranges and other fruits for the Sella family owned company, Abella. Years later, he left work due to illness and delayed arrest during the 1958 crisis. Thus, he opened a shop to sell vegetables at the end of the Abu Faisal convention in the Burj al-Barajneh camp on the side of Al-Anan Street. After a while, the shop was closed and remained unemployed for months, until he worked (in the sixties) as a supervisor of the Yamama building located at the IC School Inn in Ras Beirut. He remained in it until he died, may God have mercy on him.
During the days of wars in Lebanon, particularly during the civil war and the Israeli invasion, my grandfather received dozens of refugees from the Burj al-Barajneh camp in the building’s shelter, and he also supplied the area with water after it was interrupted, because there was a well in the building, while my grandmother was baking on the “Farniyah” and distributing bread in the area After closing the ovens.
My grandfather passed away on July 7, 2003, and my grandmother on the 15th of the same month in 2012 during her son’s visit to Abu Dhabi.
This is a small part of what I learned about the life of my grandfather and my grandmother in the most difficult stages of his life .. and it remains an attempt to revive their memory and the memory of the fall of Tarshiha ..