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Salman Abu-Sitta
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Salman H. Abu Sitta(born 1938) is a Palestinian researcher and writes about Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Palestinian Arabic-speakers, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine, that after that war became the...

s and the Palestinian right of return
Palestinian right of return
The Palestinian right of return is a political position or principle asserting that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return, and a right to the property they or their forebears left or which they were forced to leave in what is now Israel...

.

Biography

Abu-Sitta was born in Beersheba
Beersheba
Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....

 (Bir al-Saba', Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...


بئر السبع), British Mandate of Palestine, in what is now the Southern District of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. After making a 40 kilometer journey to his home on foot from his boarding school in Jerusalem, Abu-Sitta escaped a few days later with his family to Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...

 and joined the first wave of Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 refugees. Abu-Sitta moved to the prestigious al-Saidiya secondary school in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 where he graduated with "excellence", ranking first in Egypt. After graduating from Cairo University
Cairo University
Cairo University is a public university located in Giza, Egypt.The university was founded on December 21, 1908, as the result of an effort to establish a national center for educational thought...

's Faculty of Engineering in 1958, Abu-Setta went to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 to continue his post-graduate studies, receiving his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

, in what is now known as UCL
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

.
  • Former member of Palestine National Council (20 years).
  • Researcher on refugee affairs and author of over 200 papers on the subject.
  • Director of international development and construction projects.
  • Founder and President of the Palestine Land Society (PLS).
  • General coordinator of al-Awda the Palestinian Right of Return Coalition

Documentation of al-Nakba

Abu-Setta, has spent 40 years digging for any detail of information about, or related to, Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 before, during and after the creation of Israel. Abu-Setta’s self-imposed mission has encompassed not only documenting al-Nakba, but also ensuring that "the memories and identity of the occupied homeland are never lost". The documentation process began when he was 30 years-old, when he stumbled on the memoirs of the Turkish chief of Beersheba, when Palestine was under Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 rule. The document dated back to the early years of the last century.


"It sort of started from there, and it has never stopped," Abu-Sitta says. "I kept collecting all and any material on every inch of my homeland."

Published works

  • The Return Journey (2007) Palestine Land Society ISBN 0954903412
  • Atlas of Palestine, 1948 Palestine Land Society (January 2004) ISBN 0954903404
  • The Palestinian Nakba 1948: The register of depopulated localities in Palestine (Occasional Return Centre studies) (1998 reprinted 2000) Palestinian Return Centre ISBN 1901924106

Articles


External links

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