Abu Usama
Elders of Palestine

Meet Mohamad Jaafar, also known as Abu Usama.

 

He is from the Bedouin village of Ni’ilya in Southern Palestine.

 

During the Palestinian Nakba, his family were expelled from their village and forced to flee for their lives. Abu Usama was born on the side of the road as they made their way to Gaza, to become a refugee before he could take his first breath.

 

In 1967, at the age of 19, he fled with his family to Jordan where they settled in the Gaza Refugee Camp near the town of Jerash.

 

Abu Usama was interviewed in May 2024 in his house in the Gaza Refugee Camp.

 

His memories of Palestine are a testament to the history of a people that the Zionist occupation so desperately tries to erase. They cannot and will not. We will continue to tell their stories in the hopes of making Palestinian voices heard across the world.