Zochrot - Nakba Day in Miske, 2007

Nakba Day in Miske, 2007

As every year on Israeli Independence Day, we came to visit the destroyed village of Miske. We were about 150 people, Jews and Palestinians. Our hosts, the refugees of Miske and their families, received us in an orchard that was planted on Miske land by neighboring Jewish towns. This was the first time in Miske that we could not meet inside the village school house, because the structure was destroyed last year by the Israel Lands Authority.

Abed a-Manan, who was born in Miske and was a boy during the expulsion, told us the following story:

When they put the extended family onto trucks in order to take them out of the village, the family's dog wouldn't get on the truck but instead ran after it. The family settled in a neighboring village. Every so often the dog would appear, eat, and disappear again. And every time he returned to the village he waited for them there. Abed al-Manan said that the dog knew he should stay in Miske because there was the family's home, and so he continued to come and go between the family and the old house.