BAHARKA CAMP, Iraq – Ayhab Aldadeedi has never seen his homeland with his own eyes, he laments. He was born in Iraq, decades after his Palestinian mother and father fled Haifa as children in 1948 upon the creation of the State of Israel and the violence that erupted with it — an event referred to by Palestinians as the Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic. While he’s never set foot on Palestinian soil, he carries a Palestinian passport, and since his birth he’s been considered a refugee in Iraq.
Today, Aldadeedi, 26, says his current home, a small plastic tent in Baharka Internally Displaced Persons camp, finally matches his lifelong refugee status.
Aldadeedi, like the 18 other Palestinian refugee families in Baharka IDP camp, lives in a small cramped tent near the northern Iraqi city of Erbil. Aldadeedi was living in Mosul when militants from Islamic State — also known as ISIS or ISIL — took over last July. He, his wife and their young daughters immediately fled. First they ran to Khazir camp, a sprawling desert tented city between Mosul and Erbil. However, within months ISIS had advanced further, overrunning the camp and causing panic. Now, nearly a year on, Aldadeedi speaks to Haaretz from his second tent in less than a year.
In discussing the Nakba – which Palestinians commemorate this Friday, on the annual Nakba Day — Aldadeedi responds quickly with, “Which one?” His life has been a string of catastrophes, he says. His young daughter is destined to have the same fate he says despondently. Rawan, 5, sleeps quietly beside Aldadeedi, oblivious to the words of her father. A small soft toy elephant lays beside her. Rawan’s life now revolves around the tent that is now her home. Aldadeedi’s parents were around the same age when they fled Haifa in 1948.
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