My Great Uncle Abu Kamel Youness
by 2024 RBC Emerging Artist in Reisdence, Safa Youness
The lovely older gentleman seen on repeat on the tv screen and in a newspaper clipping in my display “غربة/Ghurba” is my great uncle Abed Qassem Youness, affectionately known as Abu Kamel. With his thick framed glasses and his proud kufiyyeh, Abu Kamel bravely gives his testimony, as he did many times throughout his life, about his survival of the October 29, 1948 massacre and ethnic cleansing of our ancestral village of Safsaf, Palestine. This horrific event is documented by the perpetrators as “Operation Hiram”. To its survivors, it is one of several inhuman actions taken to dispel us and sever us from the lands we have cared for and lived with for centuries. Abu Kamel describes what happened after the fall of his village to the militias that would eventually make up the Israeli army.
“My mom held onto one hand and the soldier held me by my other hand and dragged me outside. Many other men were also dragged out and told to turn our backs so we faced the wall. They sprayed us [with bullets]. We started using each other as protection from the bullets. Someone put his head into my chest. I was shot in the arm, and it hit him in his face. He died.”, Abu Kammel narrates. He then lifts his sleeve to reveal the sunken part of his arm in which the bullet hit him. He was able to play dead, thanks to the blood of his kin trickling down his face, surviving until the women in the village were able to help. Abu Kammel recounts the number of men martyred, the families who lost their brothers, fathers, and uncles.
Further research into this event and of the village in general, including from the book “All That Remains” by historian Walid Khalidi, would validate my great uncle’s account. His memory and want to always share his testimony is a revolutionary act in the face of a brutal occupation that continues to this day in Palestine. It’s only right that the public see him giving this testimony, on repeat, in the recreated living space of my family that now lives in a refugee camp in Lebanon.
Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FICRQ_yYMOY
