For Our Children's Sake
-----------------------

We will never give up
as Sixty Five years gone by

and Israel is waiting for
our elders to die

Israel thinks we then
say to Palestine Good-by
and set aside and sob
blame ourselves and cry

But we say it to Israel
no matter how long it will take

Israel will one day vanish
as it is illegitimate and fake

and Palestine will be freed
for Our Children's sake

our fighters are now sleeping
one day they will be awake

and they will shake you Israel
worse than a mighty earthquake
------------------------------

Dr Khader Abu-hayyeh
15/05/2013

I wish all the people of Palestine in General and the People of Al-Lydd in particular a very happy Eid Alfitr,inshallah next eid will be in Palestine.

Sixty Seven-forty eight
-----------------------

Sixty seven -forty eight
those are years that we hate

those are years that we curse
as we lost our state

we lost all of Palestine
to the Zionists on that date

but the right is ours
we will win and liberate

that day sure is coming
for that day we can wait

-------------------------

Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
Kent,England

The Day of Return
----------------

We are getting closer
to the Day of Return

return to our Homeland
to that day we all yearn

we should tell our children
about the Nakba to learn
--------------------------
dr Khader Abu-hayyeh
Kent,England
11/11/11

The Occupation of Al-Lydd
-------------------------
If Israil has occupied Al-Lydd on 11th July 1948,Al-Lydd is till occupying our hearts and our very existence , we will never give up the hope of going back to it,
Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
Kent,England

Olive Branch
------------
What did I get as a souvenir
from my lovely Lydd when I was there

I got a branch
from an olive tree
I am going to keep it
till Palestine is free

From Al-Aqsa Mosque I also got
an olive branch,is worth a lot

so Sanaa do get
a lot of pictures
and show it to us
and your friends the teachers

I wish u a journey
that's safe and memorable
to our Loveely Lydd
that is so adorable

-------------------------------------------------
Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
Kent,england
04/07/2011

Commemorating Al-Nakba
----------------------
Sixty three years ago
we were attacked and thrown
away from our land
and the houses were blown

the Jewish gangs were ruthless
with their beastly attack
to bomb and kill us
and our houses to ransack

we were mislead
cheated and told
to leave our houses
and the arms we hold

Arab soldiers told us
leave, get out and wait
because they will fight
until they liberate

we were forced by them
and made to believe
we didn't know that
they came to decieve
we were so simple
weak and naive
but now we are determined
to fight till we achieve
and every inch of the land
liberate and retrieve
-------------------------------------------------------------Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
Kent,England
15/05/2011

Our Arab Leaders
----------------
every Arab Leader is
scared of loosing his seat

Every one of them has
glue stuck to his seat

now they are trying
in vain aand desperate to meet

meat demands of the people
who forgot the taste of meat

these leaders think it's easy
to always lie and cheat

they have always suppressed
their people and beat

it is time for these dictators
to say goodbye to their seat

or they won't have one day
nothing but the fleet

and it will be too late
to be saved by the sixth fleet
----------------------------------

Dr Khader Abu-hayyeh
Kent,England
01/04/2011

The day I visited Al-Lydd
-------------------------

It was a day I will never forget
a day I remember every little bit

It was a sunny day in Nineteen Ninety Five
the memory of that day in my heart is alive

From Jerusalem to Ramlah I took the car
although I could walk, as it is not so far

passing through villages that still stand
so scarce these days in our lovely land

I looked eagerly on both sides to see
our land which is calling:I need to be free

I arrived to Ramlah after a little while
and walked a distance of less than a mile

Prayed in Omar Ibnalkhattab Mosque and wondered around
and then at Nabi saleh Mosque myself I found

From Ramla I took the bus to Lydd
I wish I walked it ,I wish I did

passing by Bir Alzibaq and the Sycamore tree
remembered the stories my father told me

I prayed in the mosque that's in front of the church
after that I went in Al-Lydd to search

for the house that once I lived and grew
as my parents said and what they said was true

but my house was demolished by the criminal hand
of the Israeli soldiers who occupied my land
-----------------------------------------------

Lydda
The home town and burial place of Saint George


Lydda Mosque and the Church of Saint George 1896

The tomb of Saint George can be visited in Lydda. It is very close to Ben Gurion international airport, for visitors flying to the Holy land. The tomb is under the Greek Orthodox church of Saint George. If the church is locked the key is available from a house opposite. Sharing a courtyard garden with the church is a mosque named after Al Khader and Omar. The earliest account of a visit to his tomb is by the pilgrim Theodosius from about 530.

Saint George؟s Day

Saint George؟s feast day is on 23rd April at the height of spring. In Palestine this is celebrated according to the Julian calendar followed by Orthodox Christians. So they celebrate Saint George؟s day on the western 6th May.

On 16th of November, the day when tradition states that Saint George was buried, there is a festival that marks the end of the Olive Harvest. In Lydda and in Al Khader Christians and Muslims attend these festivals.

The Death March from Lydda

Israeli soldiers moved into Lydda on 11th July, 1948. 19 000 Palestinians lived in Lydda but its population had been swollen by refugees from Jaffa and from outlying villages to about 40 000.

Palestinians taken prisoner were executed in the Dahmash Mosque The people were forced to leave the town, usually without most of their belongings. Some who were slow to hand over valuables to the Israeli soldiers were killed.

This was during a very hot summer. Temperatures reached 40 degrees centigrade. The refugees were short of water. It was three days before they reached safety near Ramallah. By then at least 350 had died of thirst or exhaustion.



Israelis now call Lydda Lod. Today just 20% of the population of Lydda/Lod are Palestinian.

The expulsions from Lydda and the nearby town of Ramleh remain a deep scar in the collective Palestinian memory. This is because of the numbers expelled, the number killed and the horrors of the death march. But this was not the only horror of the 'Nakba' (catastrophe) for the Palestinians that accompanied the foundation of the state of Israel. About 750 000 Palestinians were expelled from the new state of Israel. Many of those who were able to remain in Israel became 'Internal Refugees' with their property, homes, businesses and land confiscated. 418 Palestinian villages were entirely depopulated.

Sands of Sorrow is a 1950 documentary about life in Palestinian Refugee Camps. In the early years conditions were so bad that 4 out of 5 kids under the age of 6 months died because of disease and malnutrition.

The Website Palestine Remembered is an excellent source on the 'Ethnic Cleansing ' of Palestinians in1948. For Lydda go to this page. For quotes from Israeli sources about Lydda go to this page.


The Road to Nowhere by Ismail Shammout 1930-2006. He was expelled from Lydda in 1948. The plight of the refugees is depicted in many of his most famous paintings.

In '48 Israel Did What It Had to Do
The full article can be read on the Zionist website Palestinefacts

Israeli Historian Benny Morris - Monday, January 26, 2004 Los Angeles Times

On July 12, 1948, Israeli soldiers battling the Arab Legion and local irregulars in the towns of Lydda and Ramle, just south of Tel Aviv, were ordered to empty the two towns of their Arab residents. Over two days, between 50,000 and 60,000 inhabitants were driven from their homes. Many were forced to walk eastward to the Arab Legion lines; others were carried in trucks or buses. Clogging the roads, tens of thousands of refugees marched, shedding their possessions along the way.

The expulsions, conducted under orders from then-Lt. Col. Yitzhak Rabin, were an element of the partial ethnic cleansing that rid Israel of the majority of its Arab inhabitants at the very moment of its birth. Earlier, in the 1930s and 1940s, a near consensus had emerged among Zionist leaders on the necessity of "transfer." They believed that it was critical to buy out or drive out the Arab inhabitants from the areas destined for Jewish statehood, both to make way for Jewish immigrants and to remove the Arabs who opposed, often violently, the establishment of such a state.

... one way or another, transfer was accomplished; 700,000 Palestinians left the country, and the refugee problem that has haunted Israel ever since was born.

...Had the belligerent Arab population inhabiting the areas destined for Jewish statehood not been uprooted, no Jewish state would have arisen, or it would have emerged so demographically and politically hobbled that it could not have survived. It was an ugly business. Such is history.

Israel's decision was not unprecedented, nor was it necessarily immoral... Had most Palestinians not left the country, there would be no Israel today.

Benny Morris on what happened in Lydda

On July 12 [1948] Ramle and Lydda were occupied by Zionist forces and a curfew was imposed. At 11:30 a.m., many Lydda inhabitants, shut up in their houses, took fright at the sudden outbreak of shooting outside. Some rushed into the streets, only to be cut down by Israeli fire... In the confusion, many unarmed detainees in the detention areas in the centre of town ؟ in the mosque and church compounds ؟ were shot and killed.؟ At 13:30 hours, July 12, before the shooting had completely died down, Operation Dani HQ issued the following order to Yiftah Brigade: ؟The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age.؟ The Middle East Journal؟, vol. 40, No. 1, Winter 1986, pp. 86-87 [ Note how he excuses the execution of detained prisoners of war as 'confusion'!]

Benny Morris on The Death March

in ؟The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949

All the Israelis who witnessed the events agreed that the exodus, under a hot July sun, was an extended episode of suffering for the refugees, especially from Lydda؟ Guttman [Israeli archaeologist and member of Kibbutz Na؟an, part of the mainstay of the Palmach, including the 3rd Battalion that entered Lydda] described the trek of the Lydda refugees: ؟A multitude of inhabitants walked one after another. Women walked burdened with packages and sacks on their heads. Mothers dragged children after them؟Occasionally, warning shots were heard.؟

One Israeli soldier (probably 3rd Battalion), from Kibbutz Ein Harod, a few weeks after the event recorded vivid impressions of the thirst and hunger of the refugees on the roads, and of how ؟children got lost؟ and of how a child fell into a well and drowned, ignored, as his fellow refugees fought each other to draw water. Another soldier described the spoor left by the slow-shuffling columns [beginning with] ؟utensils and furniture and in the end, bodies of men, women and children, scattered along the way.؟ Quite a few refugees died ؟ from exhaustion, dehydration and disease ؟ along the roads eastward, from Lydda and Ramle, before reaching temporary rest near and in Ramallah.


A drop of water by Ismail Shammout 1930-2006

Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe

In The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

On 10 July 1948 David Ben-Gurion appointed Yigal Allon as the comander of the attack and Yitzhak Rabin as his second in command. Allon ordered al-Lydda to be bombarded from the air, the first city to be in this way. This was followed by a direct attack on the city's centre, caused all the remaining ALA volunteers to leave: some had fled their positions earlier on learning that the Jordanian Legion units, stationed near city, had been instructed by their British chief, Glubb Pasha, to withdraw. As both Lydd and Ramla were clearly within the designated Arab state, the residents and the defendants had assumed that the Legion would resist the Israeli occupation by force.

Deserted by both the volunteers and the Legionaries, the men of Lydda, armed with some old rifles, took shelter in the Dahamish Mosque in the city centre. After a few hours of fighting they surrendered, only to be massacred inside the mosque by the Israeli forces. Palestinian sources recount that in the mosque and in the streets nearby, where the Jewish troops went on yet another rampage of murder and pillage, 426 men, women and children were killed (176 bodies were found in the mosque). The following day, 14 July, the Jewish soldiers went from house to house taking the people outside and marching about 50,000 of them out of the city towards the West Bank (more than half of them were already refugees from nearby villages) .
Michael Palumbo in The Palestinian Catastrophe

A young female member of the Palmach, recalled that a soldier 'went through the streets of Lydda with loudspeakers and promised everybody who would go inside a certain mosque that they would be safe.' Hundreds of Arabs entered the Dahmash Mosque believing that nothing would happen to them if they sat quietly with their hands on their head. But according to Ben Yehuda 'something did happen.' In retaliation for a grenade attack after the surrender which killed several Israeli soldiers, over eighty Arab prisoners were machine-gunned to death... The Dahmash Mosque massacre terrorized the people of Lydda.

British General John Glubb, Commander of Jordan؟s Arab Legion, in ؟A Soldier with the Arabs,؟ Harper, 1957

No sooner were the enemy in the towns [Lydda and Ramle] than they set about an intensive house-to-house search, all men of military age being arrested and removed to concentration camps. Then Israeli vans fitted with loudspeakers drove through the streets, ordering all the remaining inhabitants to leave within half an hour...Suffice it to say that houses were broken into and women sufficiently roughly handled to give point to the warning to be clear of the town in that time.

Perhaps thirty thousand people or more, almost entirely women and children, snatched up what they could and fled from their homes across the open fields. The Israeli forces not only arrested men of military age, they also commandeered all means of transport. It was a blazing day in July in the coastal plains ؟ the temperature about a hundred degrees in the shade. It was ten miles across open hilly country, much of it ploughed, part of it stony fallow covered with thorn bushes, to the nearest Arab village at Beit Sira. Nobody will ever know how many children died؟

It is true of course that the persecuted Jews of Europe suffered far worse tortures, but these were not inflicted upon them by the Arabs of Palestine. One would have hoped that people who had suffered as much anguish as have the Jews would have sworn never to inflict on others the tortures which they themselves had endured. The Arab Legion endeavoured to fight the Israeli army but not to injure civilians. Perhaps nowadays such standards are obsolete.

Some Other Sources

The Palestinian Catastrophe, Then and Now by Sandy Tolan is mostly about the ethnic cleansing of Lydda.

What really happened in the conquest of Lod? By Tom Segev

Testimonies of some Palestinians from Lydda








Leicestershire Holy Land Appeal

Home About us Aboud Bethlehem Saint George Ecumenical Accompanier Links

I say no more ,
that is Al-Lydd
I can't find more words
than what has been said
------------------------
Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
Kent,England

Forget You Lydd?,NO WAY
-----------------------
Israil is dreaming
that we Lyddans one day

will give up the fight
and resign and say

let us take what is
given to us this way

a mini state that won't
survive a single day

We will never forget
Palestine as a whole

Allydd is the life
to us and the soul

we can never accept
what negotiators call

the two state solution
that's doomed to die and fall
------------------------------

Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
Kent,England
12/09/2010

Indirect/Direct negotiation !!!!
--------------------------------
Indirect or direct
what difference does it make

Israel will never give
but will always take

these negotiations are
a joke and a real fake

Palestine is calling you
Arabs help,FOR GOD'S SAKE
------------------------

Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
Kent,England
31/07/2010

In Al-lydd I was born
--------------------

when I visited you my Lydd
I arrived at the dawn

they asked me where are u from?
I said here I was born

they said here!!what do u mean?
I said Al-lydd is well known

they said why did u leave it?
I said simply we were thrown

thrown away by your forces
they looked vague and withdrawn

Al-lydd was in 48
in their mouth as a thorn
---------------------------------
Dr Khader Abu-hayyeh
Kent,England
03/02/2010

The Day Of Return
-----------------

To the day of Return
we look forward and wait

whan we liberate our land
and have our free state

that day is coming soon
nevermind about the date

Lydd will be free again
and Lyddans will celebrate

we have to unify the ranks
as we all face same one fate
-------------------------
Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
kent,England
02/01/2010

If You Live You Will See
-----------------------

It came as no surprise
what I've seen on TV

Authority is full of lies
with the enemy they agree

they condone killing us
postponing the guilt decree

decree done by Goldstone
incriminating Israeli crimes

crimes against civilians
in Gaza times and times

we have now two enemies
one is out and one inside

the inside is more sinister
betrayed us and has denied

Our elders always say
if you live you will see

they say also now and then
worms in mish form within

----------------------------
Dr Khader Abu-Hayyeh
Kent,England
07/10/2009

It is a Long Wait
-----------------

It seems it's our destiny
to endure a long wait

before we can have
a small dummy state

I hope Fateh and Hamas
care of our common fate

they should stop at once
their fighting and hate

before they finish each other
so what will they liberate

they are following the agenda
that the Israelis dictate

they should postpone their duel
until we have a state

when Al-Lydd and other cities
will be glad and jubilate
-----------------------

Dr Khader Abu-hayyeh
Kent,England
05/08/2009

They are selling the Bride
-------------------------

Are they moderates?, I say no
for this matter we decide

they are traitors ,if they say
we will help you they have lied

Palestine is not for sale
who dares sell this Pretty Bride

they are plotting in the dark,
in day light they go and hide

we don't need their help at all
let them leave and step aside

we will fight and liberate you
Palestine,it's our Pride

and for Lydd I say we are
comming like a mighty tide
--------------------------
Dr Khader Abu-hayyeh
Kent,England
13/03/2009