It's summer in the global north (which is winter in the global south), and for the month of August Literatur.Review is bringing them all together, publishing previously untranslated or unpublished stories from the north and south of our world.

Samir El-Youssef is Palestinian-British, born in Rashidia, a Palestinian refugee camp in the south of Lebanon, 1965, and lives in London since 1990.  
The author of 11 books of fiction, essays and poetry, he writes in Arabic and English and has contributed to many publications among which The Guardian, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Nizwa, The New Statesman and Index on Censorship. 
In 2004 he collaborated with Israeli Etgar Keret in publishing Gaza Blues, a collection of short fiction. 
In 2005 he won the PEN-Tucholsky Award for promoting the cause of peace and freedom of speech in the Middle East. 
In 2021 he collaborated with Palestinian poet Mohammed Tayseer in producing Gaza the Land of the Poem, an anthology of poems by 17 Gazan poets. 

The first woman I ever loved was German. She was very beautiful and, surprisingly, she spoke Arabic in such a perfect Palestinian accent that some people thought she had been born in Al-Rashidia refugee camp. Her name was Hannelore but people in our street called her by the Palestinian name Haniah. 
She was our next-door-neighbour. She liked me and treated me as if I were her young brother. Whenever I knew that she was at home I stood by the lowest part of the fence dividing our two backyards, waiting for her to call me. “Ahmad, can you spare me a few minutes?” She often asked me either to help her with her housework, especially when she came back tired from her job at the local surgery, or simply to keep her company. When she didn’t ask, when I found myself waiting by that fence, losing hope of hearing her voice, I felt disappointed, even betrayed. I was only ten and she was the first woman I had ever loved, and, sadly, she went mad.

Hannelore lived alone. She was known in the street as the abandoned German wife, but that was only at the beginning when Maher, her husband, returned to Germany leaving her in the camp. 
The couple had come to visit Maher’s family: his eldest sister and two aunts. Maher also wanted his old friends and neighbours to see how well he’d fared but it had never entered his mind that he would return to Germany without his wife. 
Maher didn’t exactly leave Hannelore; it was she who decided to stay and she wanted her husband to stay too. 
“You want me to stay here?” He thought she was joking.
She nodded. She was serious.
“After I managed to get way, you now want me to be stuck here for good?  Why?” He was astonished she’d even thought of it. “And you, Hannelore, born and brought up in Frankfurt, you want to stay here as well! In al-Rahidia, a refugee camp, you must be joking!”
“No, I’m not joking. I’m not going back.”
“What are you going to do here?” Maher asked, deliberately stressing the pronoun “you” as if to make it clear that remaining in the camp was not an option he himself would even remotely consider. But Hannelore ignored the stressed pronoun; she seemed to think they could both be of use.  “People here could do with some help!” The local surgery needs volunteers. I could help out; I know Arabic and I could help.” She sounded as if she’d thought of everything.
“Ah! Is that why you wanted to learn Arabic?” He instantly regretted encouraging her to learn the language, not that she needed encouragement. From the moment she’d realized that their relationship was going to be permanent she started learning Arabic. She insisted on him talking to her in Arabic, not only while she was learning the language but later on too: “If we have a child I want it to know both our languages!” 
That she was sincere had impressed him but now he recognized what a mistake he’d made in allowing her to come so close to his past: in teaching her Arabic and then bringing her here.
“And you can do something too!” he heard her saying.
“Do something!” Maher cried out, “Like what? I am a mechanical engineer, and as you can see there aren’t many car factories around here!”
“Yes but you can still teach – English, Maths and physics, anything you’re good at!” she said in an imploring tone.
He didn’t reply. He just kept shaking his head in disbelief. 
“We can help!” she said again. “Things are so bad round here!”
“They used to be worse,” he said, without any sarcasm. 
Maher had grown up in al-Rashidia. He was only five years old when his family fled Palestine in 1948 and became refugees in Lebanon.
“At first we had to live in tents,” he told her. “At least people now have houses!”
“Houses!” she cried out in anger, “you call these houses?”
“Well, rooms, walls and doors are better than tents,” he replied hastily, surprised by her angry reaction. “Nothing is permanent here, it isn’t supposed to be,” he went on, trying to explain to her what he assumed she clearly didn’t understand but his patronizing manner only infuriated her further. 
“People here are in limbo. They are waiting for the whole problem to be solved, or at least to find a way out for themselves.” He seemed to be drawing on his own experience and trying to justify it, no doubt.
He’d lived in the camp for nearly fifteen years before he eventually managed to go to Germany where he studied mechanical engineering, got married to Hannelore, and found himself a job in a big car factory. For ten years he’d lived in Germany, suffered the life of a poor student and the unemployed graduate, but not once did he wish to return to Lebanon, not even for a short visit. “Starving on the streets of Frankfurt is better than going back to the camp,” he said on various occasions.  It was only when he felt he’d finally made something of himself that he’d thought of returning to visit family and friends, largely to show them that he now belonged to the fortunate ones. The idea of staying was, therefore, inconceivable. “People would laugh at me!”
“Why?” Hannelore protested.
“Because no one who manages to leave would think of coming back unless he was a failure or a fool,” Maher explained impatiently. “They’ll think I was an idiot to drop everything I had back in Germany and return to this miserable life! Some of them will suspect I was running away, that I’ve done something bad in Germany and fled before I was caught. You don’t know how people think around here!”

Hannelore didn’t believe him. Instead, she suspected that her husband lacked any sense of public duty and, even worse, that he’d been corrupted by living in the West for such a long time, which was even more reason for her to persuade him to stay. 
“At least we can try for a while.”
He wouldn’t budge, “Look Hannelore, if you want to stay you are welcome to do so but I’m going back to Frankfurt!”
Nevertheless, he didn’t leave right away and tried several times to talk her out of her crazy idea: “This is not a life for us!” he pleaded but received only a reproachful look in return. As she was getting attached to the place and its people, the implication of what he’d said, he realized instantly, was badly timed. He had to correct himself: “It’s no good for anybody! Everybody wants to leave, and those who manage to leave never come back! Please, let’s go home!”

But every time he tried to make her change her mind, she, in turn, tried to make him change his. Fearing that Hannelore might wear him down and despairing of ever taking her with him, he left without her. Latterly, when they had discussed the subject, she had tried to play on his weakness, talking in a fairly practical way: “We don’t have to stay here forever! Just a couple of years or even less, and then see if we can achieve something. If not, we can pack up and go back to Germany.”
She also refrained from reproaching him for his lack of a sense of public duty and instead started appealing to his well-developed vanity.  “If we can do well for the common good, imagine the respect you would earn among the people here and think how envious the leaders and notables would feel, how they would clamour to win your friendship.”

Maher was momentarily won over. What if he did stay and ran things the way they ought to be run? What if he proved to be so good that he became a leader of one of the political factions, or even the leader of the whole community?  Oh my God, what am I thinking? he practically snapped at himself; how could he even consider returning to the nightmare from which he was fortunate enough to have escaped years earlier. How could he have been tempted by such an idea, even if only for a few minutes? He hated Hannelore; she was the one responsible for such an idiotic thought. He feared that his wife had become a dangerously scheming woman. What had got into her? He’d known her as honest and direct. Indeed, he’d always admired her for her honesty and directness, traits that he could not match. How she had changed. It was all because she’d grown attached to the damned place and how on earth could any sane human being get attached to such a dump? He couldn’t understand. Perhaps she was no longer sane; something must’ve happened to her and made her go crazy. 

Reasoning thus, Maher found himself with a bigger problem:  if she had actually gone mad, was it right to leave her alone in the camp? He was panic-stricken; out of a sense of duty, he might have to consider staying with her. No, he should insist on taking her back with him. At least he should try to reason with her one last time. After all she was still his wife and it was his responsibility to take care of her, especially if she was no longer well. He must try again, but still he was worried that she might succeed in making him stay with her as she had almost done before or even that he himself, without her persuasion, might change his mind; like her, he might go crazy and decide to stay. Whatever demon had got into her might get into him too, compelling him to give up everything he’d achieved and reduce him to zero. He was really frightened and felt he must leave without any further delay. The next morning he told Hannelore: “If you wish to stay, you are welcome to do so. I’m going back to Germany!”
He left and she stayed. Maher’s sister and two aunts were angry with her. “Why does she want to stay here and quite on her own?” they protested. “A woman alone in the camp? It’ll bring nothing but shame on us.” 
But they were angrier with him, “What kind of a man leaves his wife alone in the camp?” They believed that had he been man enough he would have dragged her by the hair all the way back to Germany. Embarrassed, they visited Hannelore hoping to persuade her to follow her husband. 
“It’s dangerous around her,” Maher’s eldest aunt warned her. “It’s not only shameless men who will never leave a woman like you alone but the Jews too.”
“The Jews?” Hannelore was totally mystified.
“They strike. From the air and sea, they strike, it’s dangerous!”
Maher’s sister explained, “There have been Israeli air-strikes. And people are expecting more.”
“She means the Israelis,” Hannelore thought to herself, showing no trace of fear that the camp might well become a target for regular Israeli air raids.  A blank look on her face, she asked seriously, “Why do you call them the Jews?”
The three women were surprised that she was concerned about such a trivial matter. “Israelis, Jews they are all the same,” the eldest aunt cried out impatiently.
“That’s what we are used to call the Israelis,” Maher’s sister explained.
The blank look remained on Hannelore’s face. “My own safety is not more important than the safety of people here, but I shall never call the Israelis the Jews.”
The two aunts appreciated what she said but they didn’t understand what was so wrong about calling Israelis the Jews. Maher’s sister nodded, “People here are very simple!”
“The important thing,” interrupted the eldest aunt, “is that you must leave.”
“No,” Hannelore replied defiantly, “I’m not leaving.”
They were angry and decided to have nothing more to do with her and throughout all the years Hannelore stayed in the camp they didn’t visit her. 

People in general thought Maher was smart and she was stupid. But, no, they considered, she wasn’t really stupid; after all she was German and could leave whenever she wanted. They were still suspicious of her though, and resentful. “Why would a decent woman want to stay in such a place?” and probably this sense of resentment led to her being called the German woman or the abandoned German wife. Predictably enough some men did try to take advantage. Hannelore, however, was far too serious to give even the slightest impression that she was a flirt and it was an undeclared rule in the camp that a woman who didn’t flirt was to be treated as respectfully as a sister. Soon everybody grew to like her and treated her as someone to admire, not only in our neighbourhood but also in the whole of Rashidia. 

She volunteered with the DFLP working at their surgery. The DFLP rented out to her the house next door to us. We didn’t like it at first. Mother was frightened that the DFLP would use the place as a military base which meant it would become an inevitable target for Israeli air attacks. 
“Comrade Om Ahmad, I assure you that it will only be occupied by Comrade Haniah,” Abu Khaled, the commander of the DFLP in the camp, told my mother on one occasion when he was passing by and she stopped him.
“On my honour, Comrade Om Ahmad!”
“Don’t you Comrade me! If I see one feday in that house I shall stir up the whole neighbourhood!”
“Believe me, Om Ahmad, we have no intention of putting you at risk in any way!” Abu Khaled was clearly worried my mother might spread the word that the DFLEP were planning to use the house as a military base. In those days the DFLP, unlike Fatah and other factions, were still a decent lot and cared very much what people thought of them.
“I assure you,” the man nearly begged.
But Mother didn’t believe him and insisted that Father, who otherwise was totally indifferent, go and see the owner. “I’m not sleeping one night more next to a fedayeen base,” she warned my father. “You must go and talk to Abu Ali.”
“What fedayeen base? We haven’t seen a single feday.”
“I’m not going to wait until they are here. You go and tell him!”
“Tell him what?” Father was baffled. “It’s his house after all.”
“You tell him that a good neighbour doesn’t do this kind of thing.”
“But he’s not doing anything.”
“You just tell him that!” she yelled.
Abu Ali came to visit us; Father must have begged him to assure Mother that the house was being let for no other purpose than as accommodation for Haniah. 
“I’m not worried about you,” Abu Ali joked, “I don’t want my house to be razed to the ground!” 
Mother didn’t laugh. She remained worried until Hannelore moved in and they started having chats over the fence. I fell in love with her immediately and was always ready to help her.

The DFLP surgery was merely two small zinc-roofed rooms and a kitchen, in which a doctor and nurse, who also worked as the receptionist, offered modest services for people in our neighbourhood. Hannelore suggested making a few changes which both the doctor and the nurse welcomed but which Abu Khaled did not. “This is not meant to do the work of the Red Crescent or the UNRWA!”
“Yes, but we could make it more hospitable a place,” Hannelore said. “The doctor and nurse would feel better and so would the patients.”
Abu Khaled didn’t understand what she meant. Why should a surgery be hospitable? he wanted to ask.  However, he was still impressed by her, preferring to stay and help instead of going back with her husband and so he didn’t want to argue with her at first. 
“Do what you think is useful!” he said reluctantly. 
She did and within a few weeks the surgery looked different. Miraculously, the two miserable rooms with the neglected surrounding garden became a beautiful focus of attraction in our shabby neighbourhood; the rooms were freshly painted and re-furnished, and the garden was cleared of weeds, dug and planted with lots of rose bushes. People couldn’t resist coming to see it. The surgery soon became famous beyond our neighbourhood for the way it looked as much as for the considerably improved service. 
Doctor Nader who was in the habit of turning up late started arriving on time. He was a young doctor who considered his present job as a mere stepping stone to work in one of the Gulf countries or with the UNRWA whose salary was among the highest and the jobs were secure. However, since Hannelore had come on the scene he had started taking his work more seriously; he talked as if he actually believed that as a doctor who had decided to devote a lifetime to serving his poor people, his was a noble mission. Hannelore was very proud; the change in the doctor’s attitude was clear proof that she was right to stay. Those in the camp needed the doctor, but the doctor himself needed someone like her to help him function better, to give his best, and most of all to believe in what he was doing. She was right; Maher was wrong. 

Hannelore never forgot Maher. He was her husband and she still loved him. She only wished he’d stayed so he could have realized that what they were capable of doing was not, as he’d claimed, pointless; the professionally improved doctor was her proof. 
“Doctor Nader was just like Maher,” Hannelore told Abu Khaled, “an ambitious young man who against all the odds succeeded in becoming a doctor and therefore he believed his qualification was his ticket out of the miserable life of the refugee camp.” 
“Everybody around here thinks that way, unfortunately. Most of our educated people are selfish,” Abu Khaled replied. He hated the educated, or those who he occasionally referred to as useless and cowardly intellectuals. 
“No I don’t agree with you Abu Khaled.” Hannelore wanted to make it clear she wasn’t criticizing the doctor but rather explain the importance of what she’d done and was still hoping to do: she wanted him to support her further. “If he hadn’t considered using his qualifications to help his own people, it wasn’t because he was particularly selfish but because he hadn’t been provided with the motivation and public spirit.”
“You are right,” Abu Khaled interrupted, “but it’s not our Front’s fault. We have always repudiated petty bourgeois mentality. We’ve been working hard against it but what can we do with people like the Fatah who go around corrupting good people with money and privileges?”

Hannelore by now had become aware of the various factions’ rivalry and fights. She knew how each faction leader blamed other leaders and she didn’t wish to get involved. That would be a complete waste of time and she wanted to concentrate on practical matters. “All men like Nader and Maher need,” Hannelore went on with an unconcealed sense of satisfaction, “is someone who is capable of organizing things in a way that will encourage them to put their qualifications and efforts into the service of their people.” 
She was right, at least at first. To the envy of other factions whose surgeries were as shabby as the DFLP’s had been, patients from every part of the camp poured into our surgery. So envious did they become that one rival faction tried to blow it up; others sought to tempt her away. A Fatah commander offered her a good salary, a car and all the resources she needed. Hannelore was tempted but was too proud of her achievement to accept and she wanted to go on improving the DFLP’s surgery. The real problem was Abu Khaled who didn’t want the surgery to get any larger or to have any more patients. Moreover, the doctor and the nurse got tired of Hannelore’s ambitions: the improvements had made them too popular for their own comfort.  
“It’s impossible for us to carry on seeing the increasing number of patients without help from at least one more  doctor and  nurse,” the doctor complained. 
“There are days when we have no less than forty patients,” the nurse added.
Indeed, sometimes the surgery was so crowded patients were made to wait in the garden. Hannelore introduced an appointment system, hoping to decrease the pressure, but to no avail; our people were not used to discipline and no matter how many times Hannelore explained, and the nurse begged them to stick to their appointments, they would still come an hour or two earlier.
“We respect and support what you are trying to do but we can’t cope without more resources!” the doctor emphasized. 
“We need more staff,” reiterated the nurse who urged her to talk to Abu Khaled. 
Hannelore tried but Abu Khaled would not budge. 
“Comrade Haniah, we are an organization whose aim is to fight and liberate our land,” he explained. “We are not a charity for the ill and the poor.”
Hannelore protested, “You can’t waste the opportunity to develop something that is so essential, something that will prove your dedication to your people no less than fighting the enemy.” 
But there was no point, Abu Khaled was adamant; nor was he able to understand the importance of institution building.
Hannelore’s journey into despair started then. One day my mother came back from visiting her. 
“Haniah might be leaving us soon!” she declared, and my heart sank. 
“What?” I said.
“Why?” asked my father more to show Mother he was interested in what she was saying than that he actually wished to know.
“The bastard doesn’t want her to do good for the people,” Mother went on, speaking with the tone of voice of someone who had expected this to happen, “She keeps asking him to improve the surgery but he won’t let her. Enough’s enough he says. We don’t have the money. He has money to spend on himself and his family but not to treat people. She’s got fed up and she’s thinking of leaving!”
“Who’s the bastard?”
“Who do you think? Abu Khaled, Abu shit!”
My father glanced at her not knowing exactly what to say without making her more upset. 
“Why doesn’t she join Fatah?” he asked, after a pause, “They’ll give her all the money she needs.”
She shook her head hopelessly.
“What?”
“You men don’t understand a thing.”
“What?”
“This surgery has become her home and her family.”
My father didn’t understand so she went on impatiently, “Unlike you men, women can’t just get up and leave; we can’t simply exchange one home for another.”
“Where would she go?” he asked, again not so much in order to know but rather to calm Mother down. 
“Back to her country, to Germany, where else?”

I was terrified. I couldn’t believe that Hannelore would go away, that I would never see her again. As soon as Mother went into the kitchen I rushed out, not to stand by the fence waiting for her to call, but right into her house. I knocked on the metal gate and entered before she called me in. Breathlessly I looked at her and I was about to ask her if it was true that she was leaving, when I noticed how weary and sad she was. 
“Do you need anything?” I asked.
She shook her head. 
I stood there looking at her. “Abu Khaled is a bad man, everybody knows it.”
She gave me a faint smile. “He’s not the only bad man. There are so many bad people in the world.”
“Do you want to go back to Germany?”
“I don’t want to, dear Ahmad, but perhaps I ought to.”
“Why? Do you miss Germany?”
“Yes. But that’s not the reason. I can’t do anything more here.”
I wanted to ask her why she didn’t join a different organization, one that would appreciate her, but instead I found myself saying, “When I grow up I want to go to Germany. I want to continue my studies there, like your husband.”
“Like my husband!” she retorted, despair in her voice.
“Germany is a great country.”
“That’s what my husband thinks too.”
“Don’t you think that Germany is great?”
“No!”
I was surprised. “Why?”
“Why? What can I tell you?” She wasn’t in the mood to explain. “When you grow up you’ll understand.”
But I was eager to talk about Germany. Ever since I’d first known her I had wanted her to tell me about her country.
“It did bad things to other people.”
“It did? You mean Hitler and the War?”
She nodded.
“But Hitler was great!”
“Great?” she asked, staring at me in disbelief. “Why do you say that?”
“Because he made soap out of the Jews!”
“What?” Terrified, she gazed at me as if I was a monster. I myself was terrified and I didn’t understand what exactly I’d said to make her so frightened.  
“That’s what all my friends believe!”
Covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears. I wanted to disappear. As she wasn’t looking I thought of taking the opportunity to sneak out but couldn’t. I was the cause of her tears and I must stay and listen to what she had to say once she’d calmed down. 
“Is that what they teach you at school, that Hitler was a great leader?” Tears had made her eyes look brighter than they usually were. 
“No. Not at school. But people here hate Jews.”
She shook her head.
“You mustn’t hate people,” she said without looking at me and sounding as if she was addressing an invisible audience. “You mustn’t love monsters.”
I nodded.
“Some of the people Hitler murdered were as young as you are, children,” she said, again bursting into tears. “Did you know that?”
I shook my head but she wasn’t looking at me. 
“Go now! Go!” she said sobbing.

I was in the playground the next morning when she came to the school and I suspected that she wanted to complain about me. I hid until she’d left and for the rest of the day I sat in the classroom expecting the headmaster to call me at any minute. To my relief he didn’t. Nor had she mentioned me I realized later when the headmaster explained the purpose of her visit.  She did, however, complain about the kind of education pupils of our age were receiving saying that she was appalled that some of the pupils admired Hitler. 
The headmaster agreed the education we were getting was far from ideal but he pointed out that he was only sticking to the curriculum which was determined by the UNRWA in accordance with the Lebanese Ministry of Education. “I assure you, however, that our pupils are not taught to admire Hitler or any other such individuals.”
The headmaster knew and respected Hannelore. He was delighted that she was showing interest in the school and hoped she would be of some help. Indeed he took the opportunity to complain about the lack of proper resources and equipment. “Nobody cares! The Ministry of Education doesn’t want to know, the UNRWA keeps cutting the budget and our brothers in the PLO won’t show any enthusiasm unless they can use the school for their own political aims.” 
The headmaster didn’t realize that Hannelore wasn’t there to listen to his complaints. She was only interested in teaching the students about Hitler’s crimes. A few days later she came back offering to give free lessons on the history of the Nazis and Hitler. The headmaster looked amused at first. He tried to explain to her that he had no authority to introduce a new course and in any case there was no space on the timetable. 
Hannelore offered to give her lessons after school hours. 
“Look, let me be honest with you. The history of Germany is of no interest to us. We don’t even teach our students the history of Palestine.”
Hannelore was shocked. “How can children not be taught the history of their own people?”
“The school curriculum is set by the Lebanese authority and therefore our pupils learn about the history of Lebanon.” 
“But that’s wrong! You should do something about it.”
The headmaster raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness but she wouldn’t give up. The next day she went back to the school, this time to suggest the introduction of a voluntary course in history which dealt with what had happened in both Germany and Palestine.
“The link between the two histories is so important,” she explained with an enthusiasm that was only matched by her early enthusiasm when she first worked at the surgery. The headmaster had no time for her suggestions so asked her to leave and never bother him again. 

Hannelore was surprised, thinking she’d come up with a brilliant idea. She began complaining about the headmaster. Some people were sympathetic and supportive, others advised her to give up, “No use, Haniah! No use!”
She went on complaining, not only about him but also about Abu Khaled and all other factions’ leaders. She complained to whoever cared to listen. Once I heard her in the backyard muttering things in German and Arabic, “Lots of things need to be done! Children need to be taught properly.”
I sneaked along the fence and peeped over, trying to see who she was complaining to this time. To my surprise she was talking to herself. Soon hearing her talking to herself in the backyard or even on the street became routine. People said she was going mad and started avoiding her. She was persistent in visiting faction leaders, teachers and anybody else she believed ought to be contacted in order to change things, but nobody listened to her. She neglected herself and soon the beautiful German woman looked more like the old women of the camp.

After that she rarely left the house. People lamented the loss of her beauty and presence. I wept every time I saw her in that state. 
“That’s what we do to good people,” Mother cried. “We Palestinians are an unbearable people. We drive good people away; we drive them mad!” 

Of course everybody believed that Hannelore had gone mad, including Mother who nevertheless visited her. Mother wanted her to go home. She begged her to do so, saying she was willing to try to get in touch with her husband. Hannelore gave no reply so my mother went to Maher’s sister and aunties but they promptly made it clear they had nothing to do with that woman. Mother then went to Abu Khaled - whom she hated and held responsible for what had happened to Hannelore - and demanded that Hannelore’s husband be informed; he must be told to take his wife back to her country. 

Nothing happened and soon the camp became a regular target for Israeli navy shells and air strikes. People started leaving the camp. My father found a job in a Lebanese village and we too moved away.

I never found out what happened to her. I tried to forget her, to forget the pain I’d caused that poor woman, but couldn’t. Whenever I met someone from our old neighbourhood I inquired about her. She’d disappeared and nobody knew for certain when or how. Once I was told she’d left during the civil war of 1975 - that’s two years after we’d moved out of the camp. Another time I was told she stayed until the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, leaving Lebanon with the PLO fighters. She’d gone back to Germany, to her husband, and they have children now, I was told. But perhaps she hadn’t gone anywhere; perhaps, if I go back to our old house and stand by the fence I will hear her voice, “Ahmad! Ahmad I’m still here.”

Glossary

DFLP – The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and Maoist organization. The group was founded in 1968 by Nayef Hawatmeh, splitting from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It maintains a paramilitary wing, the National Resistance Brigades. The DFLP’s declared goal is to „create a people’s democratic Palestine, where Arabs and Jews would live without discrimination, a state without classes and national oppression, a state which allows Arabs and Jews to develop their national culture.“
UNRWA – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East[a] is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA’s mandate encompasses Palestinians who fled or were expelled during the Nakba, the 1948 Palestine War, and subsequent conflicts, as well as their descendants, including legally adopted children.
PLO –  The Palestine Liberation Organization is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people. Founded in 1964, it initially sought to establish an Arab state over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating the elimination of the State of Israel. However, in 1993, the PLO recognized Israeli sovereignty with the Oslo I Accord, and now only seeks Arab statehood in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. . On 29 October 2018, the PLO Central Council suspended the Palestinian recognition of Israel, and halted all forms of security and economic cooperation with Israeli authorities until Israel recognizes a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders.
Fatah – Formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement  is a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). In the 2006 election for the PLC, the party lost its majority in the PLC to Hamas. The Hamas legislative victory led to a conflict between Fatah and Hamas, with Fatah retaining control of the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank through its president. Fatah is also active in the control of Palestinian refugee camps.